For the CIA, no good deed goes unpunished. When the agency finally takes on a Hollywood-approved villain, it causes the violent destruction of its Belgian station. A former agency operative and his estranged daughter will have to figure out why in Philipp Stölzl’s “Erased.”
Ben Logan is a security consultant doing contract work for Halgate, a soulless multinational corporation. Unfortunately, he is too good at his job. After inadvertently uncovering something incriminating, Logan suddenly finds that his office has been emptied, his bank account and email wiped clean, and his recent coworkers lying in the morgue as John Does.
Only a timely bit of bad parenting saves Logan and his daughter, Amy, sending them to the emergency room during that fateful night, instead of to their flat.
Logan does not know his daughter very well. He only assumed custody after the death of his ex-wife. Perhaps life on the run will help bring them together.
However, he knows Anna Brandt only too well. He used to report directly to the corrupt CIA official—and he wasn’t working as a security analyst. He has “special” skills. That is why she will have to take charge of the manhunt personally.
Despite Brandt’s betrayal, “Erased” depicts the CIA in a reasonably positive light. As a policy, the agency is conscientiously working against the bad guys, rather than with them. Sure, Logan obviously worked for some kind of CIA hit squad, but based on the events that unfold, the agency seems to have a legit need for such specialists. Even Brandt has her moments down the stretch.
The fact that she is played by Olga Kurylenko does not hurt either. Smart and chic, she is more of a super-spy than a femme fatale, but she is always a worthy antagonist. Indeed, this might be Kurylenko’s year, following up her starring role in Terrence Malick’s “To the Wonder” with a nice villainous turn. Some enterprising distributor ought to pick up her powerful Chernobyl drama “Land of Oblivion.”
For his part, Aaron Eckhart makes a credible square-jawed hard-nose, carrying off his action scenes pretty well. As Amy, Liana Liberato is slightly less grating than she was in the clumsy Nicolas Cage vehicle “Trespass.” At least, that constitutes progress. Unfortunately, “Star Wars” alumnus Garrick Hagon (Biggs Darklighter, sans moustache) largely phones it in as bland corporate baddy James Halgate.
“Erased” (also known as “The Expatriate,” a much cooler title) is indeed a bit of a departure from Stölzl’s previous German-language historical dramas, the so-so “Young Goethe in Love” and the superior “North Face,” but he shows surprising affinity for the material. Granted, screenwriter Arash Amel never cooks up with anything truly new and different, but Stölzl’s execution is polished and pacey.
Not bad by B-movie standards, “Erased” opens this Friday (May 17) at the Village East.
Director: Philipp Stölzl
Cast: Aaron Eckhart, Liana Liberato, Olga Kurylenko
Running Time: 1 hour, 40 minutes
Rating: R
Stars: 2.5
Joe Bendel writes about independent film and lives in New York. To read his most recent articles, please visit http://jbspins.blogspot.com
