Pierce Brosnan is a man of unimpeachable taste. Why should it be any different when he is getting his hands dirty bumping off some inconvenient people for a mob boss?
So here we are in a town in New Orleans, where Brosnan plays Charlie Swift, nicknamed Fast Charlie, a man well past his 60 but in shipshape, who after a decorated career in the Marines has strayed into the gangster business. The film asks no questions, and so expect no answers. But the thin veneer is that the boss he works for, Stan (Caan), is one of those godfatherly figures who is wrong in the right way – meaning that he nurtures a loyal crew, does good by those who do good to him, lives by his word, keeps to his “territory”, etc etc.
Well into the film, Charlie gives a shot at explaining what Stan means to him, via a long-winding story about his father – but it’s not clear what we are to make of it.
Anyway, suffice to say that Stan does mean a lot to Charlie, so that when a rival, brash, upcoming gangsta called Beggar (Akinnagbe) comes after Stan, Charlie goes for cold, clinical, less-said-the-better revenge.
It all goes down smooth – or “nice and easy”, as Charlie says, disarming a mob of hefties at a bar – because of Brosnan’s innate charisma and, with age, a certain gravitas, which lets us take his word for worlds we don’t claim to know anything about.
However, what makes Fast Charlie better is Marcie (a very, very good Baccharin), in what is essentially a tagged-on role as the ex-wife of one of the killed gangsters. In Baccharin’s hands, and her warm eyes and enigmatic smile, the film goes beyond a ’90s mob flick to promise its two main leads a future.
As Caan (in his last role) as Stan says, as time goes by, “one finds oneself regretting the things one did not do, rather than those that one did”.
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Charlie and Marcia may not live with that regret, and for this 90-minute fast-paced flick, that is about enough.
Fast Charlie movie director: Phillip Noyce
Fast Charlie movie cast: Pierce Brosnan, Morena Baccarin, James Caan, Gbenga Akinnagbe
Fast Charlie movie rating: 2.5 stars
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