Killshot is based on a novel by Elmore Leonard. It originally was completed in January 2006. Since then it went through re-shoots after not testing very well with audiences. Johnny Knoxville's role was completely taken out of the film. After the re-shoots in 2007, its release dates continued to get bounced around and most likely waited to capitalize on Rourke's post-"The Wrestler" status. In the end, it ended up going to theaters, but its run ended less than two weeks later. It's not a great movie as it definitely has its flaws, but a few of the performances make certain moments so striking and enjoyable that it's worth watching.

The film opens on hit man, Armand "Blackbird" Degas and his two brothers finishing a job off in a hospital. Blackbird is very by the rules, but when his younger brother slips up on one of the rules everything falls apart. One brother dies and the other lands himself in jail. Blackbird considers taking an early retirement after seeing what this lifestyle can do to you. He is rejected by the people in the Indian reservation where he wanted to settle down. When he meets Richie Nix (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), he just ends up falling deeper in to this life. Richie robs people to get by and lives with his girlfriend, Donna (Rosario Dawson). He has threatened a realtor to kill him if he doesn't pay him off not to. On his way to act on this promise, Richie gets a ride with Blackbird and the two end up teaming up. However, when they go to kill this guy, they end up having a few witnesses, Carmen (Diane Lane) and her husband, Wayne (Thomas Jane). Carmen and Wayne move and change their lives under the witness protection program because of what they saw. However, Blackbird isn't a big fan of leaving witnesses of his actions alive. He works with Richie, taking him under his wing, to track down Carmen and Wayne to finish them off. However, when Richie gets caught up in things and Blackbird comes to the realization that he can't replace Richie with his dead brother death prevails.

The acting is a mixed bag here as are the characters. Some are powerful while others you just can't care about no matter how much you are supposed to. Mickey Rourke is one of the strongest of course. The original synopsis I read on the film made it seem like Carmen and Wayne were the main character and while they are in a good amount of the movie I was pleasantly surprised with the concentration on Rourke's character, Blackbird. The story begins and ends with him. We see the events through a number of different eyes, but it is how everything connects to Blackbird that seems the most important. He's a flawed man but he is probably the easiest to feel for. He separates himself from most people, disconnecting emotion so he can do his job. However, when he loses the two people he wasn't disconnected from, he becomes more alone than ever. Blackbird tries to replace his brother with Richie, which doesn't end well for anyone. Rourke shows this closed off and clearly tortured person while still seeming very human and authentic.

Joseph Gordon-Levitt has been criticized for his "over the top" performance. This seems ridiculous since this movie wouldn't have been half as good as it was without him. Gordon-Levitt accurately brought his character to life. I didn't even find the character unrealistic or over the top, but it is the character who should have been criticized if anything. Gordon-Levitt brings out this hollow man drawn to the fast paced lifestyle of a criminal. He shows this desperation to prove himself as a man and displays sheer thrill when he meets up with Blackbird. Even in his darkest of roles Gordon-Levitt is usually a good guy caught up in bad situations, making it easy to like him and feel for him. Personally I love him here and by extension loved his character even though I knew I probably shouldn't. I mean he steals from and threatens his own foster mother, treats his girlfriend increasingly worse, and talks a lot of nonsense. Yet this character is so vividly vibrant and so alive, especially when death is just around the corner. Having control of that just injects more life in him. His character is wildly interesting even if he isn't very likeable. Also considering Justin Timberlake was being considered for the role for awhile, I think it's safe to say that they made the right choice with Gordon-Levitt.

Rosario Dawson does decent with what she has to work with, but she is underused here. I would have liked to see her in a larger part of the film, which really could have worked wonders through the hinted tension between Richie and Blackbird in relation to her. Both Diane Lane as Carmen and Thomas Jane as Wayne were the performances/characters that didn't work so well for me. They weren't terrible or anything, but they were pretty dull. They're the most literal and obvious victims in the story yet I couldn't get myself to care what happened to them. Even when Carmen is being held hostage, only to be kept alive until her husband arrives to be killed as well, as she is being demeaned, I still didn't care what happened to her or her husband. There's really something wrong there as complete victims who hadn't done anything wrong and were essentially good people couldn't garner any sympathy in me. The problem was they were just so lifeless that they didn't seem real to me.

"Killshot's" story and pacing does have a few issues. Since 1/3 of the movie was added in to the story after the other 2/3s was already shot, intended for different circumstances of the story, it wasn't connected as closely as it could have been. A major portion of the film focuses on the marital problems Carmen and Wayne are having, which I couldn't care less about. In the original cut of the film they were in love, which didn't test that well, so to cause more drama it was changed to them drifting apart. This really just took away from what I really wanted to be watching; Blackbird and Richie's storyline. If they were going to focus on relationship aspects, they could have brought Dawson in to more of the story and gone in to her relationship with Richie more or even the attraction undertones between Blackbird and her. The main characters are strikingly intriguing, the action keeps your attention, and it shows what a life surrounded by death can do.