Wanted (2008) Review

Wanted (2008)

Wanted follows Wesley Gibson, a sheepish office worker, who is recruited by a league of assassins known as the Fraternity, to get revenge on the man who killed the father he never knew. 

Under normal circumstances, one could hardly call Wanted a generic action movie, what with its stylized violence, breakneck pace, and couldn’t give a shit attitude. But compared to Mark Miller’s original comic, a chronicle of evil motherfuckers vs even worse motherfuckers, where supervillains rule the world, generic is just the word I’d use. Sure, many of the same story beats are kept exactly the same, with Wesley quitting his dead end job to become an vicious killer, bent on avenging his father, but just about everything else is dialed back (probably because audiences still aren’t quite ready to digest that level of violence).

Whatever the reason, I’m here to say Wanted is still good, just distinctly different from its comic counterpart. Gone are the league of supervillains, and in their place, the Fraternity, a league of assassins who maintain balance through chaos, taking Wesley in, and in turn, giving him a chance to stop being a pussy and take his life back. Theres this go-fuck-yourself attitude about Wanted, as well as Wesley’s internal dialogue, carried over perfectly from the comic, that allows you to connect with him easily, as, despite all the killing, his journey is one we all desperately want sometimes; cussing out your boss, quitting your job, dumping your shitty partner, just taking control of your dead-end life and being someone for once in your miserable existence. 

We get a pretty solid cast too, starring Terence Stamp, Kristen Hager, Chris Pratt, Dato Bakhtadze, Marc Warren, Common, Thomas Kretschmann, Morgan Freeman, Angelina Jolie, and James McAvoy. Honestly, McAvoy pretty perfectly embodied the idea of Wesley that I had in my head, doubling down on that whole “fuck you” mentality, while still being somewhat of a reserved basket case who still doesn’t really know who he truly is. 

Wanted, directed by Timur Bekmambetov, is a film about attitude and taking back your life from the monotony of the every day trivial bullshit, even if that means creatively killing your way through a centuries old fraternity of mercenaries. 

8.2/10