Originally published on metropolis.co.jp on February 2012

Every seven years, apparently, all the world’s nastiest assassins gather to hunt each other in cinematically spectacular ways while fat-cats bet on them. I did not know that. (Um. How are they located to invite? Chat rooms? The Yellow Pages under “A”?) The last killer standing gets $10 million and the losers get dead. Sounds a little lemmingish to me. Bright spots amid this preposterone-fueled, DVD nonsense: a slumming Robert Carlyle in a somewhat pointless role as a drunken priest mistaken for a player, and the astounding athletics of Sebastien Foucan (Casino Royale), a parkour founder.