Bruce Willis Starring in Kane & Lynch Movie Adaptation: My Two Cents

Action heroes never die – they just get old, bald and fat or any combination of the three. When most actors in their fifties and sixties start to take meatier acting roles or give in to the age demographic and play fatherly figures in a family drama or family comedy; some actors who previously wowed us in the past with death-defying leaps from exploding buildings or single-handedly rescuing a group of POWs from a torture camp somewhere in Asia just can’t or won’t give up the ghost.

Despite the run on sentence above, you all know which ones I am talking about. Harrison Ford is just a bit old to be the dashing adventurer all the little girls fell in love with in Star Wars and Indiana Jones. He is no longer the Indy or Han that we knew, and he is most definitely not Jack Ryan any more – I am not suggesting that he do another movie with Anne Heche or one with his lady love Ally McBeal Calista Flockhart- I just think that he should play something more akin to his age group instead of a lothario or an action hero. Same with Sylvester Stallone. Look at the latest “Rambo” flick. Why in the world are these guys trying to bring back a youthful nostalgia to our existence with these characters? That would be like Clint Eastwood doing another Dirty Harry movie -all it does is not only show their age along with ours and do we really want to be reminded daily how old we really are?

Now comes Bruce Willis. Granted, he is not reprising his role as John McClane in another “Die Hard” flick, but he is supposedly on board to play Kane in the movie adaptation of Kane & Lynch: Dead Men. According to Variety, Bruce Willis is negotiating to star in Lionsgate’s transfer of the Eidos game and it is to be directed by Simon Crane (second unit director and stunt coordinator for “Hancock,” “Mr. & Mrs. Smith,” “Troy” and “X-Men: The Last Stand”). The movie is expected to start shooting sometime in November and movie honchos are still looking for a actor to play Kane’s other-half Lynch.

Variety reports:

“Willis will play Adam “Kane” Marcus, a mercenary who makes an unlikely alliance with schizophrenic killer James Lynch. The pair are forced on a mission to retrieve a stolen microchip. Kyle Ward wrote the script. Filmmakers are now looking to set an actor to play Lynch, and shooting will begin before year’s end. Adrian Askarieh and Daniel Alter will produce with Jason Blumenthal and Todd Black and the Willis Brothers Co. Askarieh and Alter were producers on the Eidos transfer “Hitman,” which grossed $100 million for 20th Century Fox. The producers are also developing “Jonny Quest” at Warner Bros., “Hack/Slash” at Rogue and “Spy-Hunter” for Universal.”

Yep – the producers behind the “Hitman” movie are behind this one as well – so expect K&L to be just as well received as that one was or any other movie based on a videogame for that matter.

I could be wrong, this could be a very dark and gritty role for Bruce if they do the movie correctly. Instead of a shoot em up, blow em up orgy of the senses, it could still incorporate the violence from the game but with a film noir flare. They usually change the premise of the original game when transferring it onto celluloid so why not make it even better than the game was? Most Hollywood writers either feel that the game script was not good enough and change it drastically or if it was game with basically no script at all (Mortal Kombat) they give it one. Kane & Lynch, notwithstanding a very bad game, could make a great criminal/buddy film if they do it right because the elements are all there – a jail break; shoot anyone who gets in your way; family drama; mistrust; blackmail; revenge – it could be great. But it won’t.

The main problem with men like Bruce Willis and others who were athletic action heroes in their day, is that they just cannot pull of jumping out of the way of a moving car, leap through the air to avoid being vaporized by an exploding bomb or jump out of a skyscraper onto a helicopter without the audience knowing in the forefront of their minds that in reality they would have broken a hip or their arthritis would have prevented them from running in the first place.

I am not saying either that movies should use men of a younger generation to play a gritty role such as a Kane & Lynch adaptation because it would not stay true to the game – they were older men, but actors and Hollywood need to realize that while we go to movies for escapism, we need a certain level of reality to it. I personally think that Michael Ironside would make a fantastic Kane, but again he is too old to make it seem feasibly possible. Same with Bruce Willis.

Imagine if you will Sophia Lorien, no doubt still sexy in her 70’s as any other self-proclaimed “cougar”, playing the lead romantic role in a movie that does not involve grumpy old men. No one would want to see it because you would not be able to connect with the character in the movie on a personal level because of the vast age difference. Same with an old action hero – in reality they would be wheezing uncontrollably and because they are not a nimble as they once were and would either have been shot or caught within the first five minutes.

Most videogame movies are either a half-assed attempt to continue making some sort of profit off the franchise or are not taken seriously enough. What the industry needs is a seasoned film maker who has an awesome track record to take on something like Kane & Lynch.

Just imagine what the Coen brothers (”Fargo”, “No Country for Old Men”, “Raising Arizona”) could do with K&L. It would be awesome. That is what gamers need when it comes to adaptations – a great director, scriptwriter and a casting director whose feet are firmly planted in the realm of reality. Otherwise, the movie becomes only a step above a Uwe Boll film.