The Protege had all the elements to be a hugely entertaining assassin, action thriller.
In it, Maggie Q stars as Anna, who, after being rescued by a legendary assassin Moody (Samuel L Jackson) as a child, is turned into the world’s most skilled contract killer. But after Moody is brutally murdered, Anna returns to her home country of Vietnam to find out who assassinated him and get revenge.
Along the way she becomes entangled with Rembrandt (Michael Keaton), another killer for hire, while she struggles to come to terms with the life that she left behind.
Q is utterly captivating all the way throughout The Protege. Not only is she effortlessly cool, stylish and beautiful, she seamlessly turns into a cold-blooded killer in the blink of an eye.
After supporting roles in the likes of Mission: Impossible III, Live Free Or Die Hard and the Divergent series, The Protege proves without any shadow of a doubt that Q deserves to be leading action films herself. Not only does she thrive during all of the set pieces, bringing a skill and energy that invigorates The Protege, her chemistry with her two co-stars is delicious to behold.
Her laid-back demeanour is the perfect foil to Jackson’s outlandish persona, while her spark with Keaton becomes more and more intense and electric the longer The Protege goes on.
The problem is, the longer The Protege goes on, the more unbalanced and needlessly complicated it becomes. After originally starting off in the vein of John Wick and Taken, it then dovetails into a buddy comedy, before flirting with drama, romance, conspiracy and war genres.
Initially, this zigzagging from one genre to another makes The Protege rather riveting. Especially since it moves from locations in Vietnam, Bucharest, London and then back to Vietnam within quick succession. Ultimately, though, The Protege can’t maintain this breakneck pace. When it finally slows down, narrative cracks emerge and the film quickly disintegrates into a tedious mess.
Which makes it all the more surprising that the director behind The Protege is action stalwart Martin Campbell, the filmmaker who resurrected the James Bond franchise twice, with GoldenEye and Casino Royale. To be fair to Campbell, even though The Protege ultimately spirals out of control, he is clearly having a ball behind the camera.
The film is visually sleek and polished throughout, while he incorporates some genuinely surprising twists and turns into the narrative that will leave you with no idea where it is actually heading. There are also some killer action sequences that he shoots with both panache and humour, and he doesn’t hold back on the blood and violence.
All of which only makes it more disappointing that The Protege doesn’t come close to sticking its ending. Despite its obvious faults and underwhelming conclusion, there’s more than enough in it to keep audiences thoroughly entertained. Now we just have to wait and hope for Q to get the action career that she so clearly deserves.
'The Protege' is out in the UAE on Thursday
The specs
Engine: 4-litre twin-turbo V8
Transmission: nine-speed
Power: 542bhp
Torque: 700Nm
Price: Dh848,000
On sale: now
The specs
Price, base / as tested Dh135,000
Engine 1.6L turbo
Gearbox Six speed automatic with manual and sports mode
Power 165hp @ 6,000rpm
Torque 240Nm @ 1,400rpm 0-100kph: 9.2 seconds
Top speed 420 kph (governed)
Fuel economy, combined 35.2L / 100km (est)
FA Cup fifth round draw
Sheffield Wednesday v Manchester City
Reading/Cardiff City v Sheffield United
Chelsea v Shrewsbury Town/Liverpool
West Bromwich Albion v Newcastle United/Oxford United
Leicester City v Coventry City/Birmingham City
Northampton Town/Derby County v Manchester United
Southampton/Tottenham Hotspur v Norwich City
Portsmouth v Arsenal
The years Ramadan fell in May
The Lost Letters of William Woolf
Helen Cullen, Graydon House
MOUNTAINHEAD REVIEW
Starring: Ramy Youssef, Steve Carell, Jason Schwartzman
Director: Jesse Armstrong
Rating: 3.5/5
Essentials
The flights
Return flights from Dubai to Windhoek, with a combination of Emirates and Air Namibia, cost from US$790 (Dh2,902) via Johannesburg.
The trip
A 10-day self-drive in Namibia staying at a combination of the safari camps mentioned – Okonjima AfriCat, Little Kulala, Desert Rhino/Damaraland, Ongava – costs from $7,000 (Dh25,711) per person, including car hire (Toyota 4x4 or similar), but excluding international flights, with The Luxury Safari Company.
When to go
The cooler winter months, from June to September, are best, especially for game viewing.
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UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
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So what is Spicy Chickenjoy?
Just as McDonald’s has the Big Mac, Jollibee has Spicy Chickenjoy – a piece of fried chicken that’s crispy and spicy on the outside and comes with a side of spaghetti, all covered in tomato sauce and topped with sausage slices and ground beef. It sounds like a recipe that a child would come up with, but perhaps that’s the point – a flavourbomb combination of cheap comfort foods. Chickenjoy is Jollibee’s best-selling product in every country in which it has a presence.
Company profile
Date started: December 24, 2018
Founders: Omer Gurel, chief executive and co-founder and Edebali Sener, co-founder and chief technology officer
Based: Dubai Media City
Number of employees: 42 (34 in Dubai and a tech team of eight in Ankara, Turkey)
Sector: ConsumerTech and FinTech
Cashflow: Almost $1 million a year
Funding: Series A funding of $2.5m with Series B plans for May 2020
Drishyam 2
Directed by: Jeethu Joseph
Starring: Mohanlal, Meena, Ansiba, Murali Gopy
Rating: 4 stars
Sole survivors
- Cecelia Crocker was on board Northwest Airlines Flight 255 in 1987 when it crashed in Detroit, killing 154 people, including her parents and brother. The plane had hit a light pole on take off
- George Lamson Jr, from Minnesota, was on a Galaxy Airlines flight that crashed in Reno in 1985, killing 68 people. His entire seat was launched out of the plane
- Bahia Bakari, then 12, survived when a Yemenia Airways flight crashed near the Comoros in 2009, killing 152. She was found clinging to wreckage after floating in the ocean for 13 hours.
- Jim Polehinke was the co-pilot and sole survivor of a 2006 Comair flight that crashed in Lexington, Kentucky, killing 49.
Singham Again
Director: Rohit Shetty
Stars: Ajay Devgn, Kareena Kapoor Khan, Ranveer Singh, Akshay Kumar, Tiger Shroff, Deepika Padukone
Rating: 3/5
