As a fan of the Harry Potter films, I like to see those one-time child actors and actresses make a career for themselves beyond that which made them famous.  Perhaps the most well-known of these, Daniel Radcliffe, who played the boy wizard, has had some moderate success.  His female counterpart, Hermione Grainger (Emma Watson), has had some minor roles, but nothing major.  If you know your Potter lore, you will remember that there is a third person among the leading parts of that saga: Ronald Weaseley (Rupert Grint).  He has been quite active, with some bad, some good work. All this is to explain why I chose the rather obscure title, Wild Target (2010).  You can decide for yourself which of these is this one.

From the first scene of Wild Target, you might think it is one of the bad ones, though it does not involve Grint.  Instead, we meet Victor Maynard (Bill Nighy), an aging assassin who, while trying to learn French, casually walks into a hotel and kills someone.  We also see him carry out another contract, a person with a parrot who repeats his name.  The creature then says “I love you,” which stays his hand.  The fastidious killer then visits his mother, Louisa Maynard (Eileen Atkins).  She is proud of her son’s profession since it is a family one, but she also wishes that her Victor had been married and started a family before turning fifty-five.  To get revenge for bringing up a touchy subject, he leaves the parrot with her.  Next, we are introduced to Rose (Emily Blunt).  She bikes into the London National Gallery where she meets Gerry Bailey (Rory Kinnear), an art conservator with whom she has cooked up a scheme.  He has copied a valued Rembrandt van Rijn painting and she has lined up a buyer, a gangster named Ferguson (Rupert Everett).  To mollify Gerry, Rose tells him that she is going to present the real work in order to get the money, then swap out the fake and bring the original back to him.  Though this part of the plan goes as hoped for, if with some nervousness, soon Ferguson looks more closely at his purchase and has paint rub off on his finger.  This turns Rose into the title person and Victor is contacted to find her and take her out.  Given the fact that she is a fairly skilled conwoman and thief, she is able to pick up on the fact that she is being followed and is able to avoid being killed.  He stays after her as she is about to get into a car and is on hand to stop other assassins from murdering her.  Also in the vicinity is Tony (Rupert Grint), who witnesses the shoot out and becomes an unwitting third in this trio.  I say trio because Rose offers Victor some of her ill-gotten gains for protection from the people evidently trying to end her life.  Despite her snarky but tough exterior, he sees a vulnerability in her and agrees.  The first move is to bring them to a hotel, but her antics make her difficult to deal with in terms of protection.  Further complicating matters is the fact the place in which they decide to stay is also being inhabited by Ferguson.  Indeed, they are on the same floor.  This is eventually noticed by Mike (Gregor Fisher), Ferguson’s assistant, who has an incompetent encounter with Tony that ends with Mike’s ear being shot off.  As this takes place, Ferguson is meeting with Hector Dixon (Martin Freeman), another assassin who recognizes Victor from the description of the latter’s work.  A car chase ensues in the resulting chaos that ends with Ferguson and Mike crashing and the rest getting away.  Victor takes Rose and Tony to his home in the countryside, which is another test of the normally tidy assassin’s patience.  At first, it goes about as one would expect, with Rose going stir crazy with nothing to do in the middle of nowhere.  Nonetheless, she begins to warm up to him when it appears that they might share some particular character quirks.  Further, she tries to be appreciative of the efforts he is making.  As such, she starts to fall in love with him, and she and Tony throw a birthday party for him.  However, after being physically intimate, she discovers a scrapbook of clippings Louisa kept of Victor’s exploits, along with pictures of his targets, including one of Rose.  This shows that Victor has been lying the entire time.  Rose flees back to London and goes to Gerry, finding the restorer dead in the National Gallery at Hector’s hands.  Hector is there because he has been working his way through the London art world in order to find information on Rose.  Rose leads Hector back to Victor’s estate where there is a showdown.  Thankfully, Rose has forgiven Victor and they are able to subdue Hector and his henchman, Fabian (Geoff Bell), with a little help from Louisa.  We then fast forward three years and it is apparent that mom got her wish as Rose and Victor look out on their garden and they seem to have a son, who is digging holes.

Throughout Wild Target, Tony is treated almost like a son to Rose and Victor, giving them practice for eventually having a child of their own.  I am not sure if the younger one is meant to be going into the family business, but Tony is being taught how to be a killer by Victor before the final showdown.  Tony’s character is a bit of a blank slate, not having a motivation and going along with whatever is happening.  I would say that there is a Christian element to such a characterization if he had any kind of moral compass outside of simply being a nice guy.  Perhaps that label is too strong since he accepts the tutelage of an assassin.  There is also his pot smoking to consider.  As such, which of these characters are we supposed to latch onto since they are all problematic?  At the same time, there are some questions of value to the Catholic reviewer.  Is Victor nothing but a killer or does he yearn for something more?  More broadly, is it nurture or nature that wins out.  Christianity teaches that God created us to basically be good, even if concupiscence makes things difficult.  Above that, there is a desire in all of us to be in relationship with Our Creator.  To ignore that inclination is to bring ruin upon ourselves.  Because many movies deal with similar themes but without a theological angle, I am often saying that a bad person doing good is evidence of this divine nature winning out.  Rose shows Victor that there is more to life than killing others and making sure the salt is in the center of the table as you dine.  More pointedly, she reveals how afraid he is.  Shedding that fear is part of his character arc, and it is part of the Faith life.  There is no fear in love, just as there is no fear in God.

I got into a much deeper theological discussion than Wild Target probably merits.  It is true that Victor has a change of heart, and as a Christian, I applaud no longer leading a sinful life.  My only quibble with it is its delivery.  It is billed as a “black comedy,” which means that there are moments that would not be funny in any other setting.  If you can get through these, it is okay.