Polar (2019)
- General info
- Available formats
- Synopsis:
Recently retired assassin Michael Green (Johnny Knoxville) is killed at his home in Chile by a team of his former comrades from the Damocles corporation, a private security firm. Duncan Vizla (Mads Mikkelsen), aka "the Black Kaiser", another Damocles assassin, is preparing for his mandatory retirement at age 50 by checking in with his physician and financial adviser. Duncan is set for life. He has multiple properties spread across 4 states, has invested his salary wisely, and is comfortably able to contribute $200,000 per year to a charitable trust. He has made the maximum pension fund contributions over his career, with matching from Damocles. On his 50th birthday, in 14 days, he will be entitled to an immediate pay out of half the fund, amounting to $8 million. He is contacted by his handler, Vivian (Katheryn Winnick), who says Mr. Blut (Matt Lucas), the owner of the Damocles corporation, wants him to travel to Belarus to kill a hit-man allegedly responsible for the murder of Michael Green and 3 other Damocles assassins before settling into retirement. Duncan declines... - Actors:
- Mads Mikkelsen, Vanessa Hudgens, Katheryn Winnick, Fei Ren, Ruby O. Fee, Matt Lucas, Robert Maillet, Anthony Grant, Josh Cruddas, Lovina Yavari, Ayisha Issa, Pedro Miguel Arce, Anastasia Marinina, Martin Zolotarev, Richard Dreyfuss, Inga Cadranel, Jill Frappier, Nia Roam, Julian Richings, Johnny Knoxville
- Directors:
- Jonas Åkerlund
- Writers:
- Jayson Rothwell, Víctor Santos
- Genres:
- Action & Adventure, Drama, Thrillers
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Reviews (1) of Polar
Violent Nonsense - Polar review by GI
This is the sort of film that would have been straight-to-video a few years back, it's based on a graphic novel and is essentially a hyper violent load of tosh. A pity because when you have an actor of the gravitas and versatility of Mads Mikkelsen there's an opportunity to make something far better than this. Here he plays Duncan, an expert assassin who works for a shady company run by a grotesque clown named Blut (Matt Lucas). Duncan is due to retire, has invested wisely and is due to receive a large pay out for his years of service. Except Blut doesn't want to pay and sends his young assassins to bump Duncan off. And yes of course that's a big mistake. The subplot involving Duncan's neighbour is pointless. There's a lot of far better films about hitmen retiring and finding themselves the target. Here we have a film that just wants to show gratuitous and nasty violence for the sake of it. The film rips from loads of other films and it looks like it's trying to cash in on the John Wick success. Matt Lucas is thoroughly ridiculous, not only in his casting but in characterisation too, an over-the-top Bondian villain who reminded me of Clint Eastwood's boss in The Eiger Sanction (1975). There's nothing worth your time here unless you're into prolonged torture scenes and graphic sex for graphic sex' sake. A puerile film.