Gemini Man — Film Review
The sci-fi thriller, directed by Ang Lee (“Life of Pi”) focuses on aging hitman, Henry Brogan (Will Smith) who has grown disillusioned with his violent line of work and is ready to throw in the towel. Clay Varris, (Clive Owen) a corrupt government agent, sets out to have Henry killed by an unknown new assassin, who somehow is ten steps ahead of Henry, knowing virtually his every move and technique. With assistance from colleagues, Henry works to learn the identity of his would-be assailant and kill before the assailant kills him first. However, once Henry finds out who this person is — he is horrified to learn, that the assailant is a much younger clone of himself.
Will Smith clearly tries his absolute hardest to carry the movie, but with a weakly-written script, he’s being held back from delivering the powerful performance you would expect from this premise. While the cast is diverse, there seems to be a bit of tokenism in the casting of Benedict Wong as Henry’s friend, Baron, a comrade from their time in the Marines. Henry turns to Baron for help when he needs to stay out of sight. Baron has chosen to live a life full of wealth and serenity, but he assists his dear friend on the mission regardless. Baron’s race bears no relevance on his character development, similarly to the grant of normality that white actors have in films. It’s worth noting that Wong is the only Asian actor in a predominately white cast. Will Smith is the only African-American, which is great for representation because he is the protagonist, but also troubling in that there are so few.
For the last two decades, Smith’s acting career has proven that he is one of the rare minority actors that can draw in a versatile audience. Casting Smith as the lead alone, was a recipe for success. Had the role of Henry been cast to a less mainstream Black actor, there’s a strong likelihood that the film would not have been as popular. Mary Elizabeth Winstead (“Live Free or Die Hard”) portrays Henry’s new ally, Danny, the closest thing to a female protagonist. One of the best aspects to Danny’s character is that she is not there to serve as eye candy or the love interest, a common trope for movies of this nature. From her first appearance, Danny shows the audience and her colleagues in-universe that she can handle the most dire of situations without losing composure — even more so than Henry at times.
Aside from spectacular visual effects, Gemini Man is your run-of-the-mill genre fodder where the starring characters find themselves forced to contend with either a more youthful or more skilled contender. Such storylines have been highlighted in many different movies, such as “Star Trek: Nemesis”. As a result, the film is left with very little uniqueness. The film likewise contains an excessive number of scenes in which certain things are over explained. All these clarification scenes guarantee that the film suffers from an on-the-nose script.
