The Courier (2019)

Directed by: Zackary Adler | 95 minutes | action, crime | Actors: Olga Kurylenko, Gary Oldman, Amit Shah, Alicia Agneson, Greg Orvis, Craig Conway, William Moseley, Dermot Mulroney, Calli Taylor, Lee Charles, Gordon Alexander, Neil Chapelhow, Renars Latkovskis

A female courier has been working in London for several years and delivers parcels to the right destination in no time on her super-fast motorbike. When a mysterious package suddenly goes into emergency status, she feels wet. The package turns out to contain a bomb. The target? The only witness to a murder committed by the unscrupulous gangster boss Ezekiel Mannings. Once arrived at the destination, our brave parcel delivery lady finds herself in a bloody shooting incident. The courier takes on the perilous task of rescuing the witness of a small army of corrupt CIA agents and a pair of horrific Eastern European hitmen.

Once the simple plot has unfolded, ‘The Courier’ turns into an old-fashioned fight movie. Remarkably enough, almost the entire film takes place in a parking garage, so you don’t have to count on spectacular car chases through crowded streets and narrow alleys. In the beginning, the decor of the closed parking garage is still good for a nice claustrophobic and threatening atmosphere, but after a while it becomes a bit boring.

At set times, the film switches to a New York apartment, where gangster boss Ezekiel Mannings (played by Gary Oldman) is under house arrest. Unfortunately, these scenes are mostly a painful waste of Oscar laureate Oldman’s not exactly small acting talent. He doesn’t do much more than slump and listen to Schubert’s music while enjoying a glass of whiskey. Of course he makes the occasional overseas phone call to his foot soldiers, but that’s about it.

The action scenes are of varying quality. Sometimes quite nice and rock-hard, but after a while it does become a bit predictable and generic. The ever-appetizing Olga Kurylenko, dressed in a tough leather motorcycle suit, fights happily and takes quite a few punches and kicks herself. Her bleeding, bruised and scarred face speaks volumes and shows that even deadly ex-commandos do not always come out of the battle without color cracks. Fighting is entrusted to Kurylenko, but her acting sometimes looks a bit wooden in this film, something that applies even more to many supporting cast members who populate this print.

What remains in the end is a mediocre action film that doesn’t cause any sensation. A few nice moments do not prevent this from being a typical print for the sale bins of the local film farmer.