Irish actor Pierce Brosnan was very likely the prettiest of the James Bonds. Never liked him much back then. Thought he was just another vain pretty-boy.
However, my appreciation for Mr. Brosnan skyrocketed after seeing “The Matador“ (2006) where he exhibited a complete and utter lack of regard for his marquee looks, choosing the most unflattering way possible for a man to walk through a hotel lobby. That is, sporting only a Speedo, sunglasses, skinny legs, and some pointy Cuban boots. Just the thought of it makes me guffaw all over again.
Fast Charlie
Based on the novel “Gun Monkeys” by Victor Gischler, “Fast Charlie” features Mr. Brosnan as a gun-packing mob clean-up guy and fixer in Biloxi, Mississippi, named Charlie Swift. Charlie’s a former Marine who has a nice house, and who fancies himself a bit of a chef, specializing in Italian dishes. (He was once stationed in Italy. He’s thinking about relocating back there.)
Stan Mullen (the late, great James Caan in his final role) plays Charlie’s oldest friend and boss. Stan’s in his declining years, in a wheelchair with some dementia starting up, and relies on Charlie looking out for him. Especially after Beggar (Gbenga Akinnagbe), a rival gang shot-caller, has decided there’s a new boss in town—namely, himself.
And ... Action!
The movie begins with a flash-forward to the end when Charlie is caught, literally, with his pants down. The real beginning features Charlie mentoring and breaking in a new, young goon named Blade (Brennan Keel Cook).
Charlie’s supposed to whack a guy for Beggar to keep the peace, and gives Blade his shot, er … blade? But instead of using his namesake knife, Blade’s keen to demonstrate some flair in his debut. He delivers a box of “Crispy Cream” donuts (that’s how he spells it on the t-shirt he had made special for this occasion), featuring a strategically placed doughnut with an explosive charge in it. The victim, as intended, can’t resist that delicious Krispy morsel and “boom!”
Problem is, Charlie needed the guy’s head for identification purposes, and now there’s no head. And the extremely confidant but dumb-as-a-post Blade then tries to turn the tables on Charlie—and accidentally blows his own noggin off in the process.
Charlie looks up the victim’s ex-wife, Marcie Kramer (Morena Baccarin of “Deadpool”), a taxidermist, for clues as to how to make the corpse identifiable to Beggar. She reveals that she and her ex shared identical gluteus maximus tattoos, and that Beggar should be able to identify the butt-tat from his days with her ex in the slammer.
Something about the calm, cool, collected way Marcie handles the all of the above gruesome proceedings is rather appealing to Charlie. He eventually turns up at her house again. Taxidermy’s her passionate calling, and her life’s mission is to rearrange dead critter’s facial features, capturing them in their happiest moods, and thereby guilt-tripping their killers into an ongoing state of remorse. Charlie comes a-calling bearing a squashed raccoon (he'd like to have it stuffed). Maybe I just haven’t encountered it before, but I suspect this might be the first instance of a movie romance kicking off via the gift of road-kill.
Naturally, Beggar and his crew eventually come for Stan, Charlie, and their whole crew. Hilariously, it would appear that all of Louisiana’s organized crime outfits have figured out how to use the local alligator population as a free-of-charge, abundantly available, organic disposal unit for their numerous corpses.
Eventually, Beggar sends the root-beer-loving behemoth Lloyd “The Freak” Mercury (Christopher Matthew Cook) after Charlie, Stan, and Marcie. One of the film’s best-staged shootouts has Charlie hiding in a hotel’s laundry chute.
All in All
The relationship between Charlie and Stan is reminiscent of one of Caan’s own best films, 1981’s “Thief,” in which Caan himself played the protective gunman, and all the Italian cooking and whatnot is clearly a tip of the hat to the “The Godfather” (1972), which made Caan a star as Sonny Corleone. Mr. Brosnan plies his brand of bemused, world-weary, reluctant heroism to the role to good effect.
However, sometimes actors get a role where they fancy trying out accents that they should really stay away from. Some actors should never try accents; some are aware of this shortcoming and refrain (Harrison Ford), and some try anyway (Kevin Costner). Mr. Brosnan here cheerfully slides around between British, Louisiana twang, and a head-scratching New Yawk-ese; sometimes wallowing in all three in the same sentence. Sigh. It’s annoying, but the logical explanation is that the director has no ear for accents either.
As Vanessa, the girlfriend in “Deadpool,” the beautiful Morena Baccarin demonstrated tremendous comedic chops. “Fast Charlie” is probably not going to become a series, but Ms. Baccarin tends to upgrade any project she’s involved with. The fact that Mr. Brosnan and Ms. Baccarin make us believe these strange characters and their bizarre relationship makes the material feel less routine than it normally might.
Which makes “Fast Charlie, with its mix of humor, romance, cartoonish-if-extreme violence, colorful criminals, A-list-heavy cast, and undertones of the spirit of Elmore Leonard—a pretty watchable B-movie if you’re bored on a Friday night with no parties to go to. And a potential franchise if it makes money.
