A courier in London discovers that one of the packages she’s transporting is a bomb.

The Courier

The Courier (2019) You’d probably have certain expectations and stereotypes when a movie poster features a sportbike, but you’d be wrong with The Courier. It may feature the lovely Olga Kurylenko straddling a sportsbike in the poster, but the entire movie takes place mostly-motorcycleless in a parking garage and you know…it kinda works for me.

The story is pretty standard: The Hero is a low level tech that’s going to testify against the murderous mobster, Mr. Oldman. One of the cops assigned to protect him is dirty and now he’s on the run getting help from a stranger who can kick-ass.

Oldman plays the villain quite villainously as well. The right balance of mobster and psychopath.

Olga (also in The November Man) does a good job being the No-Name, off-the-grid, ex-Special Forces, courier unknowingly sent to deliver the bomb that was supposed to blow up our Hero. But is now tasked with keeping them both alive.

I have three criticisms of the movie:

  1. The Courier’s backstory. meh, it could have been better. Leaving it a mystery would have been the best choice.
  2. Fight scenes need to stop thinking that getting your head wrapped against concrete doesn’t matter. Puh-lease. Any person would be seeing so many stars they could barely breathe. Same with head-butts. They just don’t work for me in modern fight scenes.
  3. The ending needed work. The twist was bog-standard and was cliched, and it was such a blatant let’s-leave-this-open-for-a-sequel that it had no impact. I think movie endings would be better served if they just ended and retconned in a sequel later.

It’s a decent but predictable action movie. High production value, villains are very villainy, good fight scenes (with minor criticisms). And I like movies that put the setting in one location and can make it work.