Eckhart has been a dependable journeyman for more than twenty years already. Here he is tasked with leading- hero status. And then the film gives the lone wolf a partner. Hmm.

Eckhart is/was/we’ll see a CIA veteran hitman. His novel approach to finding out about whatever his next assignment will be is to look in the newspaper of whatever town he’s in, to find out his target information.

All is fine, though the film borrows freely from every film of the genre. But then we find that he has a long-lost daughter (Abigail Breslin), who is now a UK MI6 analyst herself. She tracks him down to deliver shocking news: his CIA boss (Tim Roth) has been dead for years and the division long since shut down.

In other words, Eckhart has been taking orders to shoot to kill from…well, we’ll find out whose orders he’s been executing.

I call this a “weeknight at home” movie. You wouldn’t want to pay a gazillion dollars to see it in the theatre, but sitting on the couch with your sock feet propped on the coffee table? Classified is more than good enough for that.

Again, there isn’t a single original note, but that’s why we choose what we choose sometimes: we want to know what we’re getting.

So, now you know. The film is what you think it is, for better or worse.

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