Review: 24 Hours to Live

24 Hours to Live, the second feature from veteran stuntman Brian Smrz, lacks the flair and dynamism of John Wick, helmed by longtime stunt coordinators Chad Stahelski and an uncredited David Leitch (who recently directed Atomic Blonde and is currently shooting Deadpool 2), though it certainly does its best to meet that film's body count.

Like Keanu Reeves' Wick, Ethan Hawke's Travis Conrad is reluctantly brought out of hiatus for a job. Thankfully no adorable puppies had to be harmed in order to motivate him, though a child in danger will keep the grieving widower and father compelled enough to dispose of enough men to populate a small Third World country. Travis, a former elite soldier turned mercenary, obviously has killing skills and his organisation, the shadowy Red Mountain run by CEO Wetzler (Liam Cunningham), sends his old Army buddy Jim (Paul Anderson) to task Travis with assassinating Iraq veteran Keith (Tyrone Keogh), who is set to testify about Red Mountain's slaughter of civilians before the United Nations. Keith is being hidden away by Hong Kong-based Interpol agent Lin Bisset (Xu Qing).

Travis seduces Lin in order to glean the location of Keith's safe house but before he can go back to Wetzler and Jim with the info, he's shot dead by Lin. Well, not quite. As its title indicates, Travis is resurrected via an experimental procedure developed by Red Mountain and given less than 24 hours to live. Travis is naturally not happy that Wetzler deems him expendable after he tells them the safe house's location, so he breaks himself out and teams up with Lin in order to guarantee Keith's safety. Oh, and also so he can help Lin get her son back since Wetzler decided to kidnap him. In the meantime, the LED clock on his wrist is ticking down and he's beginning to experience hallucinations of his dead wife and son.

Barely anything makes a lick of sense and the dialogue, highlighted by Travis' magnificently WTF "I want the fish to like me," is an earsore. Action sequences are well-staged if unremarkable, and most of the actors, Hawke included, are workmanlike. Rutger Hauer, as Travis' dad, is severely underutilised but at least gets to have an enjoyable badass moment.

24 Hours to Live

Directed by: Brian Smrz

Written by: Zach Dean, Jim McClain, Ron Mita

Starring: Ethan Hawke, Rutger Hauer, Paul Anderson, Xu Qing, Liam Cunningham