Fast Charlie: A briskly paced crime saga

Fast Charlie (2023) • View trailer

3.5 stars (out of five). Rated 18+, for strong bloody violence, gore and frequent profanity

Available via: Amazon Prime and other video-on-demand options

By Derrick Bang

Phillip Noyce’s résumé as a thriller director runs hot and cold; for every Quiet American and The Bone Collector, he has bottomed out with swill such as Sliver and The Desperate Hour. 

 

Marcie (Morena Baccarin) is completely surprised by an unexpected double-cross,
although Charlie (Pierce Brosnan) had his suspicions. But what will they do about it?

Fast Charlie falls somewhere in between, with Pierce Brosnan’s laconic charm giving Richard Wenk’s bare-bones script more juice than it deserves. The film is adapted loosely from Victor Gischler’s 2001 crime novel, Gun Monkeys, retaining the core plot beats while abandoning the dark humor that finds the author sharing territory with Elmore Leonard and Carl Hiaasen.

Wenk — undoubtedly with input from Brosnan — also has softened the title character. He’s still a ruthless killer, but solely in the service of restoring honor; most notably, the film’s Charlie Swift doesn’t take out cops.

 

The story settles into well-worn territory, with Charlie a career “concierge” — please, don’t call him an “enforcer” — for elderly crime boss Stan Mullen (James Caan, genuinely touching in his final film role). Stan has long controlled Mob operations in Biloxi, Miss., with a well-honed crew that oversees various profitable enterprises. But his memory has been failing with age; Charlie spends every possible moment helping the man he has called a friend for decades.

 

Stan and his crew are family.

 

But the times, they are a-changing. Beggar Johnson (Gbebga Akinnagbe), an ambitious up-and-comer not inclined to patience with The Way Things Have Been Done, has his eye on Stan’s territory.

 

Charlie — an accomplished chef on the side, who loves Italian food — has been contemplating retirement. Under ideal circumstances, he’ll succumb to his long-nurtured dream of buying and restoring an Italian villa. (This is a real thing: One can purchase a property for just 1 euro, with the understanding that it’ll be properly renovated within a specific deadline.)

 

But — wouldn’t you know it — circumstances swiftly cease to be ideal, and Charlie suddenly is faced with scores to settle: the ol’ “one last time” scenario.

 

The cascading chain of events begins with a request from Stan’s boss, Sal (Fredric Lehne), to whack a low-life named Rollo, as a favor to Beggar. To Charlie’s dismay, he’s “asked” to let a smart-mouthed newbie dubbed Blade (Brennan Keel Cook) handle the actual deed. In Wenk’s sole scripted nod to Gischler’s sardonic touches, the assignment goes horribly awry, leaving Charlie with a body that can’t be identified ... and how would that satisfy Beggar?

 

The resourceful Charlie apologetically visits Rollo’s ex, Marcie (Morena Baccarin), hoping she might be able to, um, provide proof of identity. Marcie turns out to be a tough cookie: a philosophical taxidermist with longtime knowledge of mob behavior, thanks to the several years she wasted with Rollo.

 

Turns out the assassination was only part of Beggar’s intentions; he’s also desperate to find and destroy some sort of incriminating evidence that Rollo has hidden away. Marcie, in turn, has long wanted the $50,000 that her ex once promised her.

 

When Beggar ups the ante by moving against Stan and his crew, Charlie realizes that balance must be restored.

 

Although the escalating body count threatens to move this film into John Wick territory, Brosnan’s scruffy, laid-back charisma keeps matters palatable. Noyce and his editors — Lee Haugen, Sherwood Jones and Jered Zalman — move things along at a fast-paced clip; the 90-minute running time feels just right.

 

A few of the executions — deliberate and, in one case, accidental — are imaginatively gruesome, and needlessly gory; the film’s 18+ rating is well deserved.

 

Baccarin brings plenty of sultry sass to Marcie, who proves impressively capable at key moments; she and Brosnan share flirty, world-weary chemistry. Both these characters have witnessed and done too much; the question is whether an actual relationship can be salvaged from their complicated pasts.

 

And whether one or both will survive long enough to find out.

 

Sharon Gless appears fleetingly as Rollo’s foul-mouthed and thoroughly repugnant mother (and I can’t imagine what prompted her to take the role). The hulking Christopher Matthew Cook is genuinely terrifying as “The Freak,” Beggar’s No. 1 assassin.

Fast Charlie won’t win any points for originality, but it’s an engaging and suspenseful little package: not a bad way to spend a Friday evening.