Killer Elite

 

When his mentor is taken captive, a retired member of Britain's Elite Special Air Service is forced into action. His mission: kill three assassins dispatched by their cunning leader.

killer Elite is a 2011 action film starring Jason Statham, Clive Owen, Robert De Niro, Yvonne Strahovski, and Dominic Purcell. The film is based on the 1991 novel The Feather Men by Sir Ranulph Fiennes, and is directed by Gary McKendry.

An ex-special ops agent is lured out of retirement to rescue his mentor. To make the rescue, he must complete a near-impossible mission of killing three tough-as-nails assassins with a cunning leader.

Sir Ranulph Fiennes' novel, controversially claimed to have been based on actual events, concerns a series of assassinations of members of the British Special Air Service (SAS) by a hit squad called "The Clinic". The "Feather Men" of the title is a group of vigilante special forces members who take on the hit men to protect members of their regiment.

The film takes place in the early '80s. We see Danny (Jason Statham) and Hunter (Robert De Niro) involved in a hit on a Mexican leader. Danny kills the Mexican, but is spooked when he finds a child in the car with him. He retires to Australia.

He receives a package with a plane ticket and a photo of Hunter being held hostage, and flies to Oman. A sheik explains that 3 of his 4 sons have been killed by the SAS, and he must see the killers dead so that his fourth son can take over. He is offering $6 million to do the job. Hunter took on the task, but ran into problems.

The sheik is old and dying, and says that he will kill Hunter before he dies unless Danny completes the job. The job is complicated by the condition that all kills must look like accidents or natural deaths, and the SAS victims must confess to killing the sheik's sons on camera.

Filming began at Docklands Studios Melbourne in May 2010. In July 2010, Jason Statham's scenes were shot at the Brecon Beacons in Wales. Robert De Niro filmed a scene in Melbourne's Spring Street set in 1970s Paris.

Some London scenes were filmed in Cardiff – in July, De Niro and Statham were seen filming outside The Promised Land Bar on Windsor Place.

In July 2010, filming took place near the Storey Arms outdoor centre, in the Brecon Beacons. A number of 1970s period cars were in evidence, particularly a bright orange Austin Maxi.