Wild Target

Victor Maynard (Bill Nighy) is a hit-man living a reclusive life in keeping with his family business; heir to a line of professional assassins, he completes his assignments quickly and without remorse. After killing one of his targets, he hesitates to kill the victim's pet parrot, Roger, who knows his name, taking him instead as a gift to his mother, Louisa (Eileen Atkins); an intimidating woman who lived with Victor until recently. To celebrate his 55th birthday she gives him an album of newspaper clippings covering all his kills, while speculating whether he is homosexual and if this is why he hasn't married and produced an heir yet.

Rose (Emily Blunt) is a not-so-average con artist/thief. Her most recent con involves the sale of a fake Rembrandt, painted by her friend in the Restoration Department of the National Gallery, to Ferguson (Rupert Everett), swindling him out of £900,000. Ferguson soon discovers the fake and hires the best hit-man, Victor, to dispose of her.

Victor takes the case and immediately finds Rose, but misses several opportunities to kill her (even accidentally killing a random stall customer in the process). He finally gives up the attempt when her brazen thefts while walking up a busy street make him laugh.

His mother Louisa is extremely annoyed at his failure (in the meantime she has apparently killed the parrot Roger with a knitting needle), and orders him to apologize to his employer by offering to do the hit for free. Again Victor tracks Rose down to a parking garage, where he sees another hit-man about to kill her. He kills the other hit-man instead. He and Rose get into her car, only to be forced out again by Mike (Gregor Fisher), another hit-man hiding in the back seat of her Mini. Mike throws Victor's gun away and stands them up against the wall to be shot, but Tony (Rupert Grint), an apparently homeless young man, has picked up the dead man's gun and wounds Mike instead.

Saying it was his first time handling a firearm, he impresses Victor enough to consider a protégé. But he sends Tony home and Victor and Rose flee. Mike starts firing at them and they nearly run over Tony on his way out of the garage, forcing him to join the ride. Rose offers Victor his price of £30,000 a week for her protection, believing that he is merely a private detective. They travel to a luxury hotel where they can lay low, but by chance get a room on the same floor as Ferguson. Ferguson hires Dixon (Martin Freeman), reputed to be second only to Maynard in proficiency, to kill Rose and Maynard. After several close calls, Mike, who is also Ferguson's bodyguard, discovers their whereabouts when he spots a pair of boots that Rose had stolen from his dead partner. Tony is ambushed in the bathroom and nearly drowned in the bathtub by Mike, but he turns the tables and accidentally shoots Mike's ear off before the three of them escape the hotel. Ferguson and Mike pursue them in a high-speed chase through the streets of London until Mike loses control and crashes the car, sending the pair to the hospital.

They travel to Maynard's home, an exclusive farm deep in the countryside, where his furniture is shrink-wrapped and his cat, Snowy, resides with him. Maynard takes Tony on as his apprentice in "private detective" work. One night (after a sensual foot-massage between Victor and Rose), Rose is attacked by Louisa (Victor's mother), who had come back to the house to finish what her son had started. He eventually talks her down and after she leaves, the three of them work on becoming friends. Rose and Tony help Victor celebrate his birthday, and, after a brief period of sexual confusion between Tony and Maynard, Victor falls in love with and sleeps with Rose. Afterwards, his attitude becomes more friendly, and Victor peels off the plastic coverings on all of his furniture and opens up the house. Meanwhile, Rose looks around Victor's room, finding the leather book that his mother had given him and learning that she was actually his target for assassination. She also finds Victor's father's first gun, a Broomhandle Mauser, and steals it for protection. She runs out of the house after making it clear that she trusts neither Victor nor Tony, and returns to the National Gallery, only to find her friend dead and Dixon and his assistant, Fabian (Geoff Bell), waiting for her. They quickly return to Victor's home, and Tony and Victor gain the upper hand when Louisa appears, killing Fabian with a machine gun. Dixon withdraws the old gun Rose had taken from Victor's room and fires at Victor. It backfires, sending the bolt into his skull. Victor, Tony and Rose bury the pair in the back yard and return to their lives.

Three years later, Victor and Rose are married with a son named Angel; Tony also lives with them as Victor's apprentice. While Angel is playing one morning, Tony comes outside asking Victor and Rose where the cat had gone off to. They look at Angel in awe as he is innocently patting soft dirt into the yard, suggesting he killed and buried the cat. Victor smiles with pride.

• Bill Nighy as Victor Maynard: A middle aged hit man who is hired by Ferguson to kill Rose after she cons Ferguson out of £900,000. After purposely missing an opportunity to shoot Rose, Ferguson sends his henchmen to do the deed. Victor kills one henchman and injures another when he is looking for Rose and, concealing his true profession, helps her escape with the help of local slacker, Tony. He adopts Tony as his apprentice and Victor realizes he's fallen in love with Rose.
• Emily Blunt as Rose: A confident con artist who oversteps the mark when she cons Ferguson out of £900,000 and leaves him with a convincing copy of a Rembrandt self-portrait. Realizing the danger she is in, she stays with Victor and Tony in an attempt to escape her attempted assassination. Her adventurous lifestyle takes a turn when she realizes her enjoyment of Victor's company.
• Rupert Grint as Tony: A young man who witnesses Victor shooting Ferguson's bodyguard and decides to stay with Victor for safety. Victor employs him as an apprentice (with Tony thinking Victor is a private detective and later, upon learning Victor is a hit man, taking it in stride) and he soon realizes he has a 'killer instinct'.
• Eileen Atkins as Louisa Maynard: Victor's intimidating mother who, while impressed with his profession, is concerned as to what will happen to the family business.
• Rupert Everett as Ferguson: A London gangster who hires Victor to kill Rose.
• Martin Freeman as Hector Dixon: A sadistic assassin who plays second-fiddle to Victor Maynard. While influenced by Victor, Dixon jumps at the opportunity given to him by Ferguson to dispose of the greatest hit-man ever known.
• Gregor Fisher as Mike: Ferguson's incompetent henchman whose several attempts to kill Victor, Rose, and Tony leave him in hospital ... and with one ear.
• Geoff Bell as Fabian: Dixon's dull-witted partner.

Review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes gave the film a critics score of 33% based on reviews from 55 critics, with an average score of 4.9/10. The site's critics' consensus reads "An ineptly staged farce that dishonors the original film and squanders the comedic potential of its fine actors."[5] Metacritic gives the film a weighted average score of 41 out of 100, based on reviews from 13 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews".[6]

Timeout London only giving it two out of five stars, saying that it feels like nothing has been "thought through."[7] The verdict given by Empire online is equally negative; it says that the "talented cast keep some low-key action and tired gags from derailing this disappointing farce".[8] Flick Filosopher enjoyed the film, saying "Movies hardly ever make me laugh out loud, but this one did, more than once, with its unpredictable twists... and unexpected punchlines growing out of the deliciously twisted characters".

• Official website
• Wild Target at IMDb
• Wild Target at AllMovie
• Wild Target at Box Office Mojo