Killers

Well, with both Katherine Heigl and Ashton Kutcher, you know it’s got to be a winner. Let’s go through this, erm, rom-com together. It’ll be an adventure, I promise.

Katherine Heigl is bravely going on vacation with her family (it’s brave because she was just dumped). Ashton Kutcher is driving in a sexy car in a sexy part of France. Katherine Heigl is at the hotel with her parents. Her mom is really into telling people that Katherine is single. Did you know Katherine Heigl is single? Well, she is single! And so even though she looks to be pushing 30, her dad wants her hotel room next to his because she needs to be protected because, hello, she is a single woman!

Ashton Kutcher speaks to Katherine Heigl in French and she pretends to understand and follows him to the beach because that is cool. She is a mess. She doesn’t even know her name? Then she makes an awkward comment about Ashton Kutcher’s body. I am really glad that women are written so well in these rom-coms. Ashton Kutcher asks her out on a date and she says “yes” because she has nothing better to do. Yeah, there is nothing better to do in the south of France than listen to Ashton Kutcher over cheap drinks.

Katherine pretends to be sick and goes off to buy a dress for her date. Her mom says, “At least you’ll look thin on the beach.” Her dad says, “You’ll find a good guy.” Because all a lady needs is a trim figure and a dude. Katherine Heigl pretends to be a robot on her date. So, at least there is one person in the world who manages to be more awkward than me on a date. Then she hides under the tablecloth from her parents. Normal behavior for an adult woman on a date. Then she tells Ashton that her dad isn’t her dad but a Russian diplomat who tried to sexually assault her on a plane (her words: grabby). So then Ashton Kutcher says “Girls don’t like grabby?” No Ashton, no.

This couple has no chemistry. Now Ashton is being really awkward on the date. He tells her he is a consultant, but he was obviously beating people up and doing weird things on a helicopter, so I don’t know with whom he is consulting. Then someone dances with Katherine Heigl without her permission and she is unhappy. He calls her a prostitute so Ashton beats the guy up and Katherine is concerned that her dress says “prostitute.”

After the date, Katherine loses her shit, she tells Ashton she is super lame (her words) and freaks out about being on vacation with her parents and being boring and Ashton makes an incest joke and then kisses her and then she tells him to take her dress off because it is way too tight. So then Ashton cuts the dress off of her with a giant machete. Then Ashton thanks her for being honest (after he nicely wraps her up in a pashmina and doesn’t look at her naked body, which is actually what a decent person would do). He says she seems real (which makes me wonder what holograms he’s been dating) and tells her he kills people. Katherine passes out on his bed, probably from the drinking and doesn’t hear him. Ashton then explains to a passed out Katherine that he only kills bad people, professionally. He doesn’t like what he does. He likes Katherine. Even after she lies to him and talks like a robot. True love??

According to a Nice is Nice montage, Katherine and Ashton hit it off and do every stereotypically romantic thing you can do without a spontaneous rain-shower. Some mysterious guy leaves a book for Ashton. It is Gene Parmesan! So that’s what he did after Arrested Development! He is Ashton’s hitman boss! Ashton confronts him and say that he doesn’t want to kill people because he loves being normal with Katherine. Gene Parmesan is PISSED. He says Ashton can’t just leave. To which Ashton says, of course, “Watch me.” Gene Parmesan yells for awhile.

I have no idea how much time has passed, but now Ashton is shooting skeet with Katherine’s Dad (Tom Selleck, by the way) and talking about settling down with Katherine. Ashton says he depends on Katherine, not the other way around, and he can trust her and blah blah blah with the patriarchal blessing, Ashton will marry her.

Okay, now 3 years later, Ashton is steering a blind-folded Katherine Heigl  into a door. He remodeled her office. I have no idea what she does and why she has bows all over her office. She is so happy. And Ashton then kisses her boobs to imply that he is with her because of them. Anyway, she gets them tickets to Nice and Ashton isn’t stoked. Mostly because of Gene Parmesan, I think, but he explains it’s because she was going to make cobbler. Then he mounts her like a mountain goat mounting another mountain goat. This is romance.

The comedy is so forced. So forced. It makes me cringe. It is full of contact embarrassment! Katherine wants to not go to a big conference because it is Ashton’s birthday (for the record, Katherine’s job is a side-notey side note, we never hear about it or the conference again). She asks her dad to take Ashton out. Ashton doesn’t hang out with a friend because he has dinner plans and the friend says that Ashton is totally emasculated. Warning dudes ““ if you like your wife, you have no balls. Katherine’s friends, on the other hand, warn her about the three-year-snooze, where apparently you get fat (the horror! the horror!) and people get miserable.

Ashton gets a message from Gene Parmesan, but the message is coded and looks like it comes from a lady named Annabelle. Katherine’s dad sees the note and he is unhappy. I think he hates Ashton, but the movie doesn’t really give me much to go on. Katherine’s dad brings Ashton to Ashton and Katherine’s house so he can change before their dinner. The house is suspiciously dark ““ but it turns out it is a surprise party and not a dangerous situation that requires Ashton to draw his gun, which he almost does. There’s an hour left of this movie and I no longer care.

If you have sex “all the time” in your marriage, it is fine, no matter your worries. Just trust the weird friend on this one. Ashton helps Katherine clean up after the party ““ now that is romance. Then he stares moodily out a window and acts distant. Ashton may have dark hair, but he isn’t good at the whole “dark and brooding” thing. He pretends to be asleep when Katherine tries to bone him. What can it mean? I don’t care.

And now Ashton’s friend (the emasculating-testicle-comment guy) tries to kill him. I don’t know why this is happening, but I am glad there is a fight scene. Fight fight fight! I want blood! Katherine comes home to see the fight, Ashton tells her to get a glock from their bedroom. He then tells her to shoot the guy in the face, which she does without questioning anything. Which, I don’t think is a good way to live your life. Turns out there is a price on Ashton’s head? Maybe Katherine’s too? So now they are in danger! And someone starts shooting at them! So they escape! How exciting!

Now we have a series of chase scenes in suburbia. This director must really get off on mixing the mundane with the dramatic. Anyway, the chase scenes end with the death of the testicle-friend and a “heartfelt” explanation from Ashton. Ashton has killed 15 people, and then Katherine starts talking about a girl’s number and it’s tiresome and punctuated by the word “babe.”

They spend the next part of the movie bickering. Ashton gets to use the phrase “I am your husband!” which totally endears me to him (har har har on opposite day). Anyway, Katherine Heigl thinks she might be pregnant so they buy some pregnancy tests and she starts eating beef jerky and barbecue potato chips. Someone is still trying to kill them. And they are still bickering.

Anyway, they find some important files on testicle guy’s computer and then Ashton goes to the bathroom with Katherine to watch her pee on a stick. She can’t pee with him there, even after he turns on “Woomp (There It Is).” While Katherine is peeing, Ashton physically fights with another coworker who wants to kill him. Katherine ends up killing her when she comes out to tell Ashton that (1) she is pregnant and (2) she is ending their relationship because he used to be a professional hit man, which seems legit. Ashton is upset.

Anyway, more random people are trying to kill Ashton. I assume it is because of the huge price on his head, but we still don’t know who put that price there and why everyone thinks they can be hitmen all of a sudden. This is like Desperate Housewives meets SpikeTV. Katherine ends up coming back and saving Ashton and they spend what feels like hours complaining and yelling at each other. At least there is a James Bond reference, I guess.

The same thing keeps happening over and over again. All of their friends try to kill them. Because apparently, a lot of money is enough to turn people into psychopathic murderers. This is like Rat Race, except not as funny and much, much stupider.

SPOILER/TWIST ENDING ALERT!! DO NOT READ IF YOU WANT TO SEE THIS MOVIE (PS YOU DON’T WANT TO SEE THIS MOVIE, I PROMISE). OH MY GOD, Katherine’s dad is the one who activated the killers! He surrounded her with hired killers, to protect her from Ashton and then asked them all to kill Ashton when he found out about Ashton’s old boss (Gene Parmesan, from the Annabelle card from earlier ““ he knew what it really was). The helicopter from the beginning? Katherine’s dad was supposed to be there! In that helicopter! Man, now that is some family drama ““ your husband was supposed to kill your dad. Wild. Ashton sticks to his story and says he got out for Katherine and Katherine figures out that her dad wasn’t actually a pilot.

Katherine then asks people to stop killing and they have a trust circle. And then there is an epilogue with a baby. So there you go. It is a shoddy story that feels slapped together, but there is fighting, which is okay, and a (now spoiled) twist ending. I give this one pickle out of one deli sandwich.