At least commercially, this slow-burn thriller from Spanish-born director Gonzalo López-Gallego, with a typically fine Ian McShane, died of false expectations.* Sold, to whatever extent it was sold, as one more Last Hit by an Aging Hitman story (tropes don’t come any tropier), it’s nothing of the sort. Indeed, McShane’s nephew/occasional partner is already in talks for the next job. And action mavens should be aware that any ‘hit’ action merely book-ends a character study of McShane, forced to wait a few days after his target fails to show on a first attempt at the man’s isolated home in Fuerteventura, a Spanish controlled Canary Island. And it’s the island’s strange, haunting landscape that sets off a sort of inner existential journey of the soul for McShane. (Fuerteventura the sort of beautifully baleful resort spot Michelangelo Antonioni might have booked for a summer.) While McShane waits, a casual encounter with young local Nora Arnezeder leads to an afternoon of sightseeing and island history. No pick up, more a surrogate father/daughter vibe though the girl is actually on the hunt for date material for her eccentric/lonely mom (Fanny Ardant). Yet there’s something wary between these two; especially when McShane’s nephew butts in. Do these two have a past? Is something being hidden? As a few lazy days play out, McShane is more comfortable bumping into Max, the tyke down the hall with disinterested parents. Max the only person in the film who’s transparent, everyone else more layers than an onion. And when the brief finale starts to run off course, López-Gallego shows his hand technically in clear narrative & kinetic action. Stylish stuff; even a moral: No man is an island . . . except when you’re on Fuerteventura.
SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY: *Just bear in mind, false expectations is a two-way street.
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