“Kingsman: The Secret Service” Directed by Matthew Vaughn

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Director:
Matthew Vaughn (“Layer Cake”, “Stardust”, “Kick-Ass”)

Main Cast:
Colin Firth (“Another Country”, “Shakespeare in Love”, Best Actor Oscar for “The King’s Speech”)
Taron Egerton (His second feature)
Mark Strong (“Layer Cake”, “Stardust”, “The Imitation Game”)
Samuel L. Jackson (“Jungle Fever”, “Pulp Fiction”, “Jackie Brown”)

Running Time: 129 Minutes
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This is the fourth Matthew Vaughn produced/written/directed (he also co-wrote) movie I’ve seen and I’ve thoroughly enjoyed them all.  I haven’t seen his 2011 “X-Men: First Class.” All the blockbuster superhero movies blur into each other for me and I find myself becoming averse to their mind-numbing bombardments of special effects and predictable endings.  Several years ago, someone in the office recommended I watch Vaughn’s 2004 crime thriller “Layer Cake” which, in retrospect, looks like Daniel Craig’s James Bond audition.  It was so intense I wanted to immediately watch a more light and fun movie.  I chose the 2007 adventure/fantasy/comedy “Stardust” without realizing it was another Matthew Vaughn movie.  To find out the same guy wrote and directed such completely different films was impressive.

Harry Hart (Colin Firth, right) is a member of the British secret service agency Kingsman.  During a Middle East mission, one of Hart’s fellow agents is killed and Hart feels guilty for not being able to prevent it.  He visits the deceased agent’s grieving widow (Samantha Womack) in London to give her a bravery medal, which she refuses out of the bitterness of losing her husband.  Hart instead gives the medal to her young son, Eggsy, telling the young boy to call the number on the medal, which includes a coded message, if they ever need help.

We follow up seventeen years later with Eggsy (Taron Egerton, left), who left training for the Royal Marines and is living an aimless life with his mother, who married an abusive thug, and infant half-sister.  After getting arrested for stealing a car and joyriding, Eggsy uses a phone call he’s allowed from jail to call the number on the medal and is promptly freed and meets Hart, who explains the Kingsman and their shared history.  Hart then sponsors Eggsy in an intense competition to replace a recently-fallen Kingsman agent.  Around this same time, super-wealthy tech genius Richmond Valentine (Samuel L. Jackson, playing the character with a lisp), known for his philanthropic efforts and for being concerned for the earth’s ecological welfare, himself becomes a threat to the world, starting with the abduction of the world’s leaders.

I mentioned in the interview I did for the site that I grew up watching Matt Helm (Dean Martin) and “In Like Flynt” (James Coburn) movies in the 1960’s, and it seems Vaughn is familiar with them as well and the film comes as across as much as a nod to them as to James Bond.  The characters directly reference “Trading Places, “Pretty Woman” and “My Fair Lady” and even borrows an exchange from “Trading Places.”  For all I know, “Kingsman” made more references I didn’t catch.

Who would ever think of Colin Firth as a lethal super agent, especially now, 31 years after he starred in Marek Kanievska’s 1984 “Another Country”?  Talk about casting against type.  Firth is convincing in a role that had to be physically demanding even if he didn’t do all his own stunts and it’s great for him to broaden the range of his filmography with his performance here.  Jackson and Vaughn staple Mark Strong (left) are their usual screen-stealing selves and all the main supporting characters, including the villain’s requisite hench(wo)man (Sofia Boutell) are good, and Egerton is a well-cast lead.  When we hear English accents in movies, they’re generally either proper or strong Cockney.  When Eggsy speaks, he enunciates soft “th” sounds like a “v.” When he says “mother”, it comes out as “muvver”, which is something I don’t remember noticing with English accents.  It makes the movie seem even more British than it is.  I looked up Egerton’s IMDB profile and all the bio and trivia information is about his abs so I’m not sure how much range or longevity to expect from his career.

Michael Caine (right, with Egerton) seems like he’s two-timing Christopher Nolan by playing the head Kingsman agent, which he does with a stronger British accent than we’re used to hearing from him.  I didn’t recognize Mark Hamill (below left) as the college professor abducted by Valentine early in the film.  Either that’s really good makeup or he hasn’t aged well, although I have to remind myself “Star Wars” came out 38 years ago.

“Kingsman” is loaded with impressive and seamless stunts and visuals and the violence is tempered by the film’s comedic element, which is something Vaughn excels at.  There’s an amazing how-did-they-do-that action scene in a church that I hope is explained with a “making of” on the DVD¹.

I’m a bigger fan of Matthew Vaughn with every film of his I see and “Kingsman” continues that trend.  Now I want to watch his “X-Men” movie because I don’t want to miss out on something I’m sure to enjoy.

DPW
March 8, 2015

¹ The church scene is so intense it was edited out of the Vietnam version of the film.

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