'Killers' review

Katherine Heigl and Ashton Kutcher (Credit: Melissa Moseley/Lionsgate)

Newly single Jen (Katherine Heigl) and undercover secret agent Spencer (Ashton Kutcher) meet cute in the French Riviera. Three years later they’re happily married and living in the suburbs, with Spence believing he left his past behind. Until Jen discovers the truth and gets a little annoyed when practically all of their friends and neighbors turn out to be sleeper agents intent on killing her husband.

The buzz: Heigl reteams with Robert Luketic, director of last summer’s icky but semi-successful “The Ugly Truth,” while Kutcher is on board as producer and star for what seems like light summer fluff. But the movie already has a vote of no confidence from its studio, Lionsgate, which declined to let critics see it before opening day.

The verdict: What have audiences done to deserve this? Summer 2010 has been a roundly disappointing season for movies, but no major release so far has been as brazenly low-rent as “Killers.” Utterly unconvincing as action, comedy or romance it’s a colossal waste of time and a shocking choice for Heigl at this point in her career. “Killers” isn’t as crass or obnoxious as “Ugly Truth”—no caveman Gerard Butler or vibrating panties here—but it barely has a pulse, let alone a brain. Inane, seemingly endless, conversations between the stars—who can’t create much chemistry in such meager surroundings—are broken up only by the occasional half-assed action scene. It’s tempting to spend an entire review just quoting the lamest dialogue. One prime exchange: “You don’t get to just walk away!” “Watch me.” Better yet, watch something else. Anything else.

Did you know? Not even the improv skills of Catherine O’Hara count as a highlight here. The filmmakers swear she had the crew cracking up on set, but you wouldn’t know it from her one-note role as Heigl’s hard-drinking mother.

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