Tommy Ward is one of the best hitmen in London, until he is not. When a job goes wrong and he mistakenly kills a family member of gang boss Freddy Darby, he needs to leave London in a hurry. The best his handler, Harry, can manage on short notice is a ticket to L.A. One year later, Tommy is now doing jobs for local crime boss Benson, who shares a home with a mail-order bride who cannot cook and a son, Julian, who would rather go to the park and be with friends than prepare himself to take over the ‘family business’.
After botching up yet another hit, Darby catches wind of Tommy's whereabouts and sets out on the next plane to L.A. Tommy now needs a big-paying job, one last score, so he can get back to London and reunite with his estranged family. Benson sends him out to kill the McRory Brothers, one half of whom is the much more proficient murderer and resident psycho in this tale, Alister.
Benson tells Tommy to take Julian with him, to toughen him, set him on the path to becoming a man, someone who will take over the family business. Starting out with one of their local criminal contacts, this new pairing set out to work their way up to confronting Alister, all the while, Darby is on his way over to avenge that earlier, botched hit.
So, we have Josh Duhamel as Tommy and Rick Hoffman as Benson, two industry veterans who are very good at what they do and are both instantly recognizable and dependable assets to Ungar’s movie. Hoffman was simply born to dominate scenes. Other recognizable faces include Aiden Gillen as Freddy Darby, who drew the shortest of straws in this one, and Arnold Vosloo as Harry, in a very, very brief appearance in the first scenes.
But for all intents and purposes, the threat that Darby presents is overshadowed by the McRory brothers - Alistar and Seamus. While we wait for Darby to show up on this side of the pond, we need foes that will keep the story interesting, and Alistar certainly does.
Jeremy Ray Taylor (young Ben in the latest IT movies) is Julian, the 17-year-old who very likely takes after his birth mother, who is no longer around. Soft with a bit of a pudge, he has the physical presence of a young Chris Farley. He plays well enough off Duhamel, filling in roles that each of them is missing in their lives: a caring father figure and a son the other has not seen in a year.
There is a very healthy amount of action from start to finish. For that, we are thankful. Will it appease action connoisseurs, who are always looking for the next big thing? If you like your action framed, shot, and edited a certain way, likely not. The admirably executed action scenes by stunt veterans Ciprian Florian and Grant Powell are good. Still, it does not reach the heights of action trendsetters from the past couple of decades.
It does take surprisingly violent turns whenever Alister shows up - what with him being the more efficient killer in this story. Alistar is a considerable threat here, and some of these scenes feature violence a bit heavier than expected, considering this is your standard action comedy film. Stabby stabby has become the norm for any entry along the action spectrum.
It bears repeating that humor is subjective. Whether or not you laugh at every joke, every gag, London Calling is funny. Not riotously but still, weed your way through the predictable gags and jokes that write themselves, and there are laughs to be had. Predictable jokes around the mail-order bride, burgeoning teen sexuality, Tommy’s inability to shoot straight. These and many more jokes practically wrote themselves. Still, we laughed a couple of times.
Understand that Ungar, their co-writers Omer Levin Menekse & Quinn Wolfe, and the whole team are not trying to reinvent the wheel here. He gave himself the opportunity, as the producer (Of eight! Not counting the twenty-plus exec and co-producers - It takes a village), to make an action comedy, seemingly based on what he liked from other action comedies from years past.
London Calling treads very familiar territory, right down to Julian returning to the park after his and Tommy’s big adventure to win the girl. He has shot guns, dodged bullets, and experienced recreational drugs; he can take on the world now! There is comfort to be found in its familiarity. You just have to be open to it.