Mark Reviews Movies: THE OLD GUARD

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Review by Mark Dujsik | July 9, 2020

The dramatic problem of an immortal character in an action movie is that the stakes are eliminated. Every blow, every injury, and even every death are just small hurdles for such a character, so the only question is how long it will take the character to get past all of those obstacles to achieve the end goal.

The Old Guard seems to multiply that issue by having five immortal heroes, part of a team of independent mercenaries who travel the globe to fight for what they think is right. Four of them have been together for at least two centuries, participating in all kinds of battles and revolutions and rescue missions. Two of them met and fell in love after killing each other in the Crusades. The team's leader can no longer remember how old she is—and likely, for that matter, how many times she has died.

If Greg Rucka's screenplay were just about the fights and the running joke that all of these characters can take every sort of licking, we'd probably start wondering what the point of it is. Of course these characters will succeed. We might see them shot and stabbed and killed a few or several times, but those wounds will heal. The breath will return to their lungs. The story's inevitable resolution is just a matter of time—as long as the filmmakers can come up with excuses to give us more and more action sequences—and effort.

Rucka, whose graphic novel series (co-created by Leandro Fernandez) the movie is based upon, definitely realizes this inherent issue with his central characters. His story may involve multiple action sequences, in which the results are always a given, and lead up to a climactic confrontation with the main villain and his assorted henchmen, but it revolves around an idea with some legitimate dramatic weight to it: Being immortal would eventually be like a living purgatory.

Director Gina Prince-Bythewood's movie wisely treats its assorted action sequences as an afterthought. As dynamic as they may seem at the start, those scenes quickly become repetitive, and until the movie reaches its action-driven climax, that's just fine. We start to care much less about how our heroes dispatch multiple foes and begin to find ourselves involved in the unique plight of these characters. They have seen history from the perspective of being involved in it for centuries and millennia, and for all of their work in trying to do good, the world doesn't seem to be getting any better.

Andy (Charlize Theron) has been at this do-gooder stuff since historical antiquity—if her full name, Andromache, is any indication. In the present day, with the news broadcasting so much misery, she's ready to call it quits.

Her teammates Joe (Marwan Kenzari) and Nicky (Luca Marinelli), who met during that aforementioned religious war and realized their love surpassed being taught to hate each other, want to keep going. The team's most recent addition Booker (Matthias Schoenaerts), who realized he was immortal in the early 19th century, doesn't seem to care either way. He has lost everyone he loved and drinks to get through a life that won't be ending any time soon.

The plot has the team of immortals being betrayed by Copley (Chiwetel Ejiofor), a former CIA agent, who tips them off to a hostage crisis in South Sudan. It's just a ruse, though, meant to prove the team's immortality for Merrick (Harry Melling), a pharmaceutical mogul who wants to examine the team for science—and, obviously, a lot of profit. After escaping the trap, Andy has one last mission in mind: kill everyone who knows the team's secret.

She also recruits a new member named Nile (KiKi Layne), a U.S. Marine who discovers she's immortal after being momentarily killed in Afghanistan. This character gives the others plenty of opportunities to explain their histories, their conflicted feelings about immortality, and their general dissatisfaction with the ways of the world.

The newcomer is also here, of course, for the movie's long game, which clearly imagines a sequel or two for at least a few of these characters (A series of flashbacks telegraph the movie's final act of sequel setup). Unlike so many modern-day franchise starters, though, this one gives the story, as formulaic and shallow as it may be, and the characters, who actually do matter more than the gimmick of their powers, room to breathe.

Their powers, in fact, start to feel less like a gimmick as Rucka and Prince-Bythewood shift their attention from the early action, featuring all kinds of neat moves that feel a bit too affectedly choreographed (The heroes are considerate enough to step aside after performing a pistol-punch, in order for a comrade to flip a different anonymous foe). There are scenes here that exist, not to further the plot, but to allow these characters to discuss and debate the effects immortality has had on their lives. As unlikely as it may sound, considering the specifics here, such moments actually provide some unexpected grounding—in the human pain and existential doubt of immortality—for material that's decidedly preposterous.

It doesn't last, of course, because it cannot under the circumstances. The Old Guard still has certain expectations and requirements to meet. They're as routine and uninspiring as the movie's quieter, more character-focused moments are surprising and appreciated.

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