THE KILLER ELITE (Cert 15, 111 mins)

Entertainment In Video, Action/Thriller, also available to buy DVD £19.99/Blu-ray £24.99

Starring: Jason Statham, Clive Owen, Robert De Niro, Dominic Purcell, Aden Young, Yvonne Strahovski.

EX-SPECIAL Ops agent Danny (Jason Statham) and his longtime mentor Hunter (Robert De Niro) are two of the most dangerous men in the world, capable of killing a target from hundreds of yards with a single pull of the trigger. When a renegade oil sheikh takes Hunter captive for refusing to assassinate the SAS soldiers responsible for killing his beloved three sons during the secret Oman war, Danny sprints to the rescue, only to find he has been set up to carry out the hit list to secure his friend’s release. Danny travels around the world in the company of ex-paratrooper and ladies’ man Davies (Dominic Purcell) and American gadget geek Meier (Aden Young). En route, the assassins are caught in the crosshairs of Spike (Clive Owen), leader of a secret society of ex-SAS officers sworn to protect their fellow soldiers from harm. Based on Sir Ranulph Fiennes’s controversial novel The Feather Men, Killer Elite is a hare-brained action-thriller that would be considerably more entertaining if everyone involved had played the preposterous set-up for laughs. Owen’s impressive moustache is more expressive than half of the cast and director Gary McKendry happily reduces the screenplay to a series of car chases and fights over rooftops and in a hospital. Screenwriter Matt Sherring raids his tattered handbook of hoary cliches for dialogue, including gems such as, “You can’t run away from who you are Danny!” When the hero’s blonde Australian girlfriend (Yvonne Strahovski) coos, “When will this be over?” clad in just a bed sheet, we know exactly how she feels.

Rating: **

THE GUARD (Cert 15, 92 mins)

Studio Canal, Comedy/Thriller/Action, also available to buy DVD £17.99/Blu-ray £22.99

Starring: Brendan Gleeson, Don Cheadle, Liam Cunningham, Mark Strong, David Wilmot, Katarina Cas, Rory Keenan.

Heroes come in all shapes and sizes, and they don’t come in a more unlikely shape than small-town Irish police sergeant Gerry Boyle. Overweight, cantankerous, foul-mouthed and partial to a dalliance with the local prostitutes, he’s a directionless man you would expect to break the law rather than uphold it – which makes Gerry the perfect, unlikely hero for John Michael McDonagh’s hilarious black comedy. Gerry (Brendan Gleeson) is king of his windswept strip of the West Coast of Ireland and he’s more interested in booze than solving crime. However, when newly arrived deputy Aidan McBride (Rory Keenan) goes missing and the officer’s wife Gabriela (Katarina Cas) begs for help, Gerry starts asking difficult questions. Consequently, he is drawn into an international drugs ring controlled by Francis Sheehy (Liam Cunningham), Clive Cornell (Mark Strong) and Liam O’Leary (David Wilmot). Straight-laced FBI agent Wendell Everett (Don Cheadle) turns up unexpectedly on Gerry’s patch to crack the ring and the two cops from opposite sides of the world forge a fragile alliance in the name of justice. The Guard mercilessly lampoons the conventions of buddy cop movies and has great fun laughing with and at Gerry as his unorthodox approach reaps surprising results. Gleeson savours every potty-mouthed tirade and there are some wonderful verbal exchanges with Cheadle as the man with the badge who takes one look at the finest that Ireland has to offer and wonders aloud, “I can’t tell if you’re really dumb or really smart.” He’s very smart, just like McDonagh’s film.

Rating: ****