The Cold Light Of Day

Indian Express Rating **

THE CIA is the villain in this film too. If,that is,you can blame the entire agency for one woman “diplomat” (Weaver) riding a suspiciously black car dressed in the same suspiciously dark clothes who goes around shooting people in Spain.

As the Spanish authorities remain clueless to her as well as to a free-wheeling Mossad squad also on the loose,the guy running,ducking and surviving is Will (Cavill). Quite a revival by a guy whose mother and younger brother have been kidnapped,and whose father has been shot dead after revealing to him that he was never a cultural attache at the US Embassy but a CIA agent. Well,the father was played by Bruce Willis after all,however briefly.

In run,Will,run,the film’s ambitions are very small — have the hopelessly out-of-his depth Cavill targeted by Weaver and gang on one side,and the Israelis on the other,while completely avoiding going into the contents of the briefcase that both sides are after.

Some scenes short in the dark where Will is still running but where the film is trotting along nicely as well keep one hopeful we are getting somewhere with this. Then a girl enters,poor Willis has another blow dealt to his flimsy character,and we know why the film shouldn’t have sought the one thing it asks of itself: the cold light of day.