CHIEF OF STATION
(director: Jesse V. Johnson; screenwriter: George Mahaffey; cinematographer: Jonathan Hall; editors: Richard Blackburn, Matthew Lorentz; music: Sean Murray; cast: Aaron Eckhart (Ben Malloy), Alex Pettyfer (John Branca), Laetitia Eido (Farrah), Olga Kurylenko (Krystyna Kowerski), Chris Petrovski (Nick Malloy), Nick Moran (Evgeny), James Faulkner (Deputy Director Austin Williams), Nina Bergman (Hitchens), Daniel Bernhardt (Kharon Taramov); Runtime: 97; MPAA Rating: NR; producers: Simon Williams, Jonathan Halperyn, Steve Lee Jones, Daniel Kresmery, Matthew Schreder; Bee Holder Productions; 2024)-in English, French, Hungarian, with English subtitles)
“Generic action spy film.”
Reviewed by Dennis Schwartz
Brit action filmmaker Jesse V. Johnson (“Avengement”/”Hell Hath No Fury”), the stunt-performer-turned-actor, directs this generic action spy film, a mid-budget, straight-to-video action thriller, that’s written by George Mahaffey. It has exciting chases, a fast pace, numerous twists, mysterious characters, good industrial location shots and a solid lead performance from Aaron Eckhart. But it suffers from a shallow story and a predictable plot.
Ben Malloy (Aaron Eckhart, who is 56) worked for the CIA as a chief of station before retiring, but whose life changes when his wife Farrah (Laetitia Eido), a former CIA operative, dies in a suspicious accidental explosion in a Budapest restaurant where she’s dining with him.
Some months later, Ben is informed by the Justice Department his wife’s death was not an accident but that she was targeted as a double agent. Ben then gets together with his estranged son Nick (Chris Petrovski) to work together to clear Farrah’s name.
Since the CIA will not back him in his search for the killer he goes after the bad guys on his own. He gets the help of some friends and colleagues that include the Brit information specialist John (Alex Pettyfer); the Russian FSB man, Evgeny (Nick Moran), a cunning agent who wants valuable information for his help; and from Farrah’s old contact, Krystyna Kowerski (Olga Kurylenko), to help him decipher his wife’s last message.
It’s routine fare, with some of the aging Eckhart’s heroic scenes hardly believable, as he dodges bullets when he should have been shot.
It was mostly filmed in Hungary.
REVIEWED ON 6/4/2024 GRADE: B-