The Protégé movie review: Maggie Q vs Michael Keaton in action thriller that’s entertaining but unremarkable

2.5/5 stars

The Protégé, the latest action potboiler from Bulgarian fight factory Millennium Films, stars Maggie Q as the eponymous assassin who returns to Vietnam, her homeland, to avenge the death of her mentor Moody, played by Samuel L. Jackson.

Directed by Martin Campbell, who twice rescued the James Bond franchise from obsolescence with Goldeneye and Casino Royale, the film is competent yet unsurprising, as we have come to expect from the company that rose from the ashes of Canon Films, legendary purveyors of eighties schlock.

What is most surprising about The Protégé is not that Maggie Q plays a cold-blooded killer masquerading as an antique bookseller. The Hawaiian-born actress honed her action skills in Hong Kong under the tutelage of Jackie Chan before appearing in both the Mission: Impossible and Die Hard franchises en route to headlining the CW television series Nikita.

Nor is it surprising that the version of present-day Vietnam in the film is populated entirely by wealthy occidental businessmen and ageing Caucasian biker gangs. Rather, The Protégé’s most persistently baffling conceit is the explosive will-they-won’t-they sexual tension between Q’s lithe and lethal heroine, Anna, and 69-year-old Michael Keaton’s mysterious antagonist, Rembrandt.

Keaton’s appeal and athleticism are beyond reproach – the former Batman star more than holds his own in a number of close-quarters altercations, all while sustaining a deliciously malevolent twinkle in his eye. But the actor is just three years younger than Jackson, who plays Anna’s de facto father figure.

To see her mourn Moody one minute, only to entertain flirtatious overtures from Rembrandt the next gets weird pretty quickly.

The outrageous dialogue between Keaton and Q is often hilarious, as if torn from the pages of Paul Verhoeven’s Showgirls, and far too graphic to be quoted in this publication. It is precisely these gleeful moments of high camp that lift The Protégé above Millennium’s grander, blander offerings, like The Expendables and The Hitman’s Wife’s Bodyguard.

Campbell’s direction is slick and proficient, and he wisely follows Luc Besson’s lead, recognising that his leading lady’s good looks and keen fashion sense are as potent weapons as her martial arts or marksmanship skills.

The Protégé isn’t groundbreaking cinema, and often feels proudly aware of the fact. But when not revelling in the comfort zone of its genre trappings, the film takes gleeful aim at our preconceptions to deliver a couple of unexpected killer blows.

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