Hey there, welcome to the weekly Thursday Movie Picks! I hope you have been joining us the previous weeks. If you haven't, it's still not too late to join. For new folks, the rules of this meme is simple: Each week there is a topic for you to create a list of three movies. Your picks can either be favourites/best, worst, hidden gems, or if you're up to it one of each. For more information on the meme and future topics please visit the meme's page here.
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This week's Thursday Movie Picks is Movies about Assassins
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Participating Blogs/Bloggers
I'm choosing to use the more lax definition of assassin (apparently assassins only take out prominent persons) and including hitmen.
Once again I am picking favourites. One of my picks came to mind quite easily, mostly because it is the earliest movies out of the three I've seen and certainly one I've seen the most. The other two, required further thinking being much newer films.
As always my favourite assassin movies in aphabetical order:
Ray is deeply depressed after his screw up, where an innocent is killed. He is now grumpy and cynical about everything. This a contrast to Ken, Ray's partner, who tries to lift Ray's spirit by wanting to be touristy and take in the sights of Belgium while they keep a low profile...which gives us a lot of the funny bits. Then there's Harry played by Ralph Fiennes who is pretty hilarious as the boss who will go to great lengths to stick to his principles. I had no expectations for this movie when I saw it and was thoroughly surprised by how much I enjoyed it. I didn't even think movies about hitmen can be funny (darkly of course) but this one successfully manages to be .
A long time favourite, this is such an emotionally intense movie and equally action packed one too...Léon the assassin is just so slick! Is he a ninja? This movie also introduced us to young Natalie Portman who is great as Matildha, at once a vulnerable child and a mini femme fatale convincing the reluctant Léon to teach her to avenge her family's death. Then there's Stansfield, played Gary Oldman who was just ridiculously amazing as the dug crazed DEA cop. I would also recommend you to check out the extended version if you haven't seen it.
Is this Tom Hanks's best performance? I think so, or maybe I am biased since I love this movie. Mike Sullivan is certainly, not the kind of characters usually played by Tom Hanks. He is a quiet man who works hard to build a better life for his family by working in a morally questionable job. I love the characters here who are all incredibly well developed and the story explores the complexity of father and son relationships, which is made the more interesting with the dire situation the story has set up where the fathers have to battle over doing the right (debatable) thing for their families.
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So that's it...my three picks. What three movies made your list today?
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Excellent picks. Each one is an amazing movie. Nice work. My post will be up in a few hours.
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