Absurd plotting, condescending politics and a deer-in-the-headlights lead performance are not the ingredients for a good thriller
There’s something unseemly about “The Fix” even before the credits roll. It’s a film about Americans heroically killing Middle Eastern villains — and heroically killing Middle Eastern heroes, just to be thorough — while simultaneously robbing and saving their country. It’s a film that eroticizes Persian women when it’s not vividly shooting them in the head on-camera. And while this may not be the filmmakers’ fault, the trailers for “The Fix” proudly announce it’s coming out “this 9/11” the same way a slasher movie announces it’s coming “this Halloween” or a Santa Claus movie says it premieres “this Christmas.” ‘Tis the season for films about killing non-Americans, apparently, as if that’s how you honor the memory of everyone we lost in one of our nation’s greatest tragedies.
There are moments when Guy Moshe’s “The Fix” is involving and intense, but I’m about to add context which will neutralize any chance of that statement getting quoted in the marketing, because shootouts and ticking clocks are intense whether they’re good or not. Moshe makes a few interesting choices throughout “The Fix,” and whenever it’s focused entirely on men on a mission, solving problems and unleashing hell, it plays like an adequate military actioner. But then they stop and talk to each other, using vernacular consisting entirely of clichés. Then the embarrassing plot unfolds. Pretty soon all we have left is gunfire and subpar acting, and the subpar acting is louder.
The goodwill Moshe’s film offers as a brawny action picture runs out fast. If “The Fix” was taut enough, its drawbacks would be easier to dismiss and we’d have to admit it was bracing and exciting even though its politics are sour. But “The Fix” goes broke long before its nearly 2 and a half hours are up, leaving the audience with ample, idle time to wonder why this grim ’n’ gritty shoot ‘em up isn’t hitting its targets.
Zachary Levi stars as Tucker, a CIA agent leading a black ops squad in the American military’s retreat from Afghanistan. His commanding officer, Larry (Liam Neeson), needs him to rescue an interpreter who was supposed to have America’s protection, but Tucker’s team arrives too late and they have to kill the man they were supposed to save. Also the man’s family dies. Also Larry goes AWOL, starts monologuing non sequiturs and grunts a laughable dramatic reading of our national anthem while Tucker stares wide-eyed.
Tucker stares wide-eyed a lot. I suspect Levi was trying to adopt the thousand-yard stare of a traumatized man who’s seen too much violence, but Levi’s so rigid he just looks like he’s frozen, as if a Tyrannosaurus is watching and can sense his every movement. There are scenes when Levi, sporting wisps of grey and a manly beard, pulls off the feat of embodying a hardcore badass who’s the best there is at what he does. But half the time it looks like he’s play-acting, which only makes us more aware of the rest of this film’s falseness.
The plot kicks in when we learn Larry is losing his memory and he accidentally reveals there’s millions of dollars hidden in the wall of a hotel in Tehran. Tucker and his team were kicked out of the CIA and really need the money, so they decide to steal it.
Actually let’s backtrack. Most of them need the money. The other two somehow became NFT millionaires who are deeply loyal to their friends and could easily loan or even give their buddies enough cash to alleviate their burdens. But no one ever suggests that. Instead, they have to risk their lives and kill a bunch of people in another country.
Tucker asks his estranged ex-wife to help him hire a Persian woman to pretend to be his new wife as a cover — and yes, you read that correctly, this whole movie is unnecessarily complicated. He chooses Zara (Elnaaz Norouzi), a beautiful woman he keeps completely in the dark and who clearly wants to sleep with him. Tucker is a consummate professional who thinks of everything, but this is a movie and movies are supposed to have love interests, right? So this subplot continues even though it’s clearly a tacked-on bad idea, leading the film in misogynistic directions.
Everything goes wrong of course, and chaos ensues. Guns are fired, bombs explode, drones drone on and on and a political dissident is rescued as a form of collateral healing, if there is such a thing. Eventually, the film dips into conspiracy territory and somehow manages to blame all the world’s problems on that evil, evil Jimmy Carter, which the movie doesn’t even try to explain.
We’re supposed to believe “The Fix” when it makes political statements, but we can’t even believe “The Fix” when two characters talk about their jobs over a bottle of beer. To be fair this is partially because the beer bottles literally only say “Beer” on them — as though “The Fix” takes place in the “Repo Man” cinematic universe — but mostly it’s the dialogue, direction and performances.
If you’re only here for the firefights and machismo, “The Fix” is too long (way, way too long) and too pompous to enjoy on those levels. It’s a film that constantly screams it’s about something but, if it is, it’s not about anything healthy. It can’t decide whether violence is cool or tragic, and although it leans politically conservative, its specific values are hard to discern. All the film can say with absolute confidence is that what we’re watching is supposed to be badass and important. It’s not. It’s confused and insecure about its points of view, and uses violence as a distraction from poorly developed and disquieting takes on actual, serious issues.
“The Fix” is in theaters this 9/11; after some reflection, I think that’s a good thing. At least this way we can easily remember where it is and how to avoid it.