The Cards Are Not Always Right
OPERATION: ENDGAME (DVD)
Anchor Bay entertainment UK/Darko Entertainment
Release date: February 21st 2011
Certificate (UK): 18
Running time: 79 minutes
Director: Fouad Mikat
Cast: Joe Anderson, Rob Corddry, Ellen Barkin, Odette Yustman, Maggie Q, Zach Galifianakis, Adam Scott, Brandon T. Jackson, Emilie de Ravin, Ving Rhames, Beth Grant
Anyone’s first day at a new job is nerve racking experience.
Everyone’s giving you the once-over, there’s names to remember, procedures to learn and a boss you have to quickly fall in line with if you’re to survive.
Any questions ranging from “How’s that memo coming along?” to “You don’t mind missing lunch so we can finish this, do you?” can lead to a nervous breakdown but what about starting work at a top-secret facility where you’re in one of two competing teams of assassins?
At this underground base in Washington DC where employees are code-named according to a deck of Tarot cards, The Fool’s (Joe Anderson) first day is going to be one of those days. The kind where your new boss, Devil (Jeffrey Tambor), is found murdered with a stack of pencils, the entire building is rigged with explosives and your ex-girlfriend is competing against you (i.e., she wants to kill you).
The Fool has a limited amount of time to find out who the killer is and make his escape but surrounded by people who don’t have much of a work/home balance, there might be some overtime involved.
With a screenplay originally titled Rogues Gallery, Operation: Endgame is set against the backdrop of President Obama’s inauguration but its potential is lost once the characters start killing each other, quickly reducing the film to computer game without a joystick.
At times it feels a bit like Southland Tales (2006) and The Tournament (2009) but while those movies had strong stories and characters that were well formed; this one leaves us with nothing to care about.
It’s a missed opportunity with such a great cast. Operation: Endgame has moments of brilliance but there’s much that could have been told.
