I'm afraid, right from the outset, that I really struggled with "High King Peter" (William Moseley) as the baddie with a fairly dreadful accent and an even less effective impact as a deadly killer. Gary Oldman has given him and his team of thugs the task of killing poor old geeky Amit Shah ("Nick") who is going to testify against him so as to put him on Riker's Island for a very long time. What nobody has reckoned on is Olga Kurylenko ("the Courier") who does more than deliver pizzas! It's awful! Oldman features (very) sparingly and the fight scenes are interminably dull and protracted. The soundtrack is straight from one of those CDs you used to get free with your Weetabix and Greg Orvis is possibly the worst "Sniper" that ever pulled a trigger.

THE COURIER is the latest in a long line of cheap, digital action flicks in enclosed settings. It gets by - just about - thanks to the strength alone of the fight sequences, which are a lot of fun and surprisingly graphic for their kind. Olga Kurylenko, an actress whom I have a lot of respect for, plays a butt-kicking assassin-type character who saves a prosecution witness from a hit squad and spends the rest of the film trying to protect him in an underground car park. The film is cheap and grubby and let down by indifferent supporting performances, although Amit Shah has some of the comedic potential he shows off well in FINAL SCORE and Kurylenko is a natural. The sub-plot with an incessantly sitting Gary Oldman is ridiculously poor and solely exists to pad out the running time. Still, the car park action gets increasingly bloody and athletic, so my advice would be to solely concentrate on those bits.

One of the Basic Rules of Movie-Making and Watching... Does the Movie at Least Deliver what it Promises?

In this Case the Answer is Yes.

The Expectations for this Low-Budget Affair is a Kick-Ass Start to Finish Action-Martial Arts Movie.

No One could Possibly Think, Given the Providence of this Sort of Thing, that it would be or could be Anything Beyond its Limitations.

Sure Gary Oldman is in "Coasting" Mode and that is Disappointing.

Amit Shah as the Victim-Witness Starts Out as one of the Most Annoying Characters in Movie History.

But He does Settle Down a Bit in the Second Half and Half-Heartedly Succeeds in Making-Up for the Over-Acting, Yelling, and Dumbness.

Olga Kurylenko is the Ultra-Punch that the Movie is Built Around.

The Thin and sometimes Confusing Crime and Govt. Corruption Plot is just There for the Endless Gun-Play, and Fist-Bang Bludgeoning

There is Where the Movie Gets its Reason to Exist.

Bloody and Brutal Violence with a "Hero" of the Comic-Book Variety that Succeeds Against All Common-Sense and Gravitational Logic.

Just Kick-Back and Watch Olga Kick-Butt.

Forget Intellectualizing and Analysis.

This Movie will have None of That.

It's Mission, if You should Decide to Accept...

is Nothing-More than Video-Game Beat & Shoot em' Ups,

for the Violence Voyeurs to Vicariously Vent all that Pent-Up Aggression.

Mission Accomplished.