The Definitive Guide to Living in the Capital , Cairo , Egypt

Featured image via imdb.com: © Signature Entertainment. Photo by Gareth Gatrell.

Action movies can be very entertaining in their own right, and they get even better when you add to the equation a stellar cast. However, according to Murphy’s Law anything that can go wrong, will go wrong; did The Courier go wrong?

The Courier follows a courier (Olga Kurylenko) as she begins another day on the job, but when things go wrong, she finds herself protecting the key witness (Amit Shah) in a case against one of the most evil and powerful men (Gary Oldman).

Right from the very first minute of the film, you can easily tell that it is all about action, regardless of whether it makes sense or not. Consequently, you’ll find yourself wondering why a courier would ever protect someone she doesn’t know, or even worse; why a mere courier would be pulled into action, when it’s not even her business, and – out of the blue – turns into a highly-trained killing machine. The film not only answers the posed questions ambiguously, but also throws implausible reasons and motivations that don’t quench the audience’s thirst to logic.

Even the excessive dose of action that The Courier offers seems at times cartoonish; either the scenes are too bloody, or depicting the courier as the invincible hero, who can take a small army down by herself.

For the acting, Gary Oldman is by far the most established, as well as the most charismatic in the feature, which leaves audiences wondering why he agreed to be in such a film. Olga Kurylenko’s performance is affected by the feature’s script, ending up being a little over the top on several occasions, adding to the cartoonish feel of the action. Amit Shah’s performance was a typical scared-for-his-life man, and although he tried to give his character a developmental arc in the third act, the feature’s below-average script overshadowed that.

Sadly, The Courier is but a waste of time for both its makers, and viewers.