Asher (2018, Michael Caton-Jones) (Patreon)

Ultimately not that great (and likely inferior to plenty of recent films that I turned off after 10 minutes), but I got sucked in by Perlman's soulful stillness in the title role. He succeeds in partially redeeming the cliché of the world-weary hitman by wearing Asher's ennui lightly, treating contract killing as if it were any other vocational grind. Chemistry with Janssen is strong, too, building a relationship you want to root for. And while it'd been 16 years since my last Michael Caton-Jones experience, this film is the definition of confident, relaxed professionalism—a formal correlative to the recurring image of Asher carefully polishing his boots before setting out on a job. Modest virtues, but satisfying. Alas, the screenplay gets increasingly dopey in the second half, almost going off the rails when Asher contemplates mercy-killing his new paramour's dementia-addled mom (Jacqueline Bisset, whose character must have emigrated to America right before giving birth since Janssen's has no trace of her British accent; I guess this must be commonplace in real life, actually, but you rarely see it in movies) and never quite recovering thereafter. Also, Asher's shtick of luring victims into the open by setting off the building's sprinkler system, while visually cool, hasn't been thought through—wouldn't that also generally result in potential witnesses to the murder, who'd then also have to be eliminated? It's not like only the targeted individual hears the alarm go off. Anyway, mostly worth a look if nothing better's available and (like me) you're woefully short on Best Actor candidates this year.