At last, self has found it! The New Yorker review of “Wanted” !
The review was written by Anthony Lane. Following, some choice quotes (The “him” in the first quote refers to the director, guy with the gorgeous name of Timur Bekmambetov):
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“Wanted” begins with a flashback, but not for him the gentle glance over the past month, or the childhood cameo; instead, up comes the dauntless title “1000 years ago.” One day, presumably a wet Thursday, a secret society of medieval weavers suddenly decided to create an even more secret society of global assassins. This was done, apparently, to maintain “the balance of the world,” a principle reiterated later in the film, but the episode leaves you panting to know more. Why weavers? Why not potters, or pastry cooks? Until now, I never made the connection between haberdashery and homicide . . .
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Bekmambetov was born in the Soviet Union, and this is his first film set in the United States, but “Wanted” never feels solidly American, and not just because James McAvoy keeps slipping into his native Scottish. He plays Wesley Gibson, who loathes his existence. Given that it involves both accountancy and cuckoldry, he may have a point, and the twitchy Gibson is the heir of a hundred other movie mice, headed by Jack Lemmon in “The Apartment.”
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You don’t tell Angelina Jolie to go away; she tells you. In “Wanted,” she plays Fox, one of the fraternity of killers, who informs Gibson that his father was the doyen of the group, that he was wiped out only the day before by a rogue operator, and that he, weedy Wesley, must learn the ropes and avenge this foul, unnatural crime. Hamlet was under the same obligation, but, lacking access to high-powered rifles and exploding rats, he took longer to finish the job.
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Self will leave the rest of the review to dear blog reader’s imagination. Stay tuned.
Kanlaon 