Wild Target (12A)

18 June 2010

VICTOR is the most respected assassin in the country - and also the most expensive.

He is carrying on the family business established by his grandfather. The problem is that it's not a job where you tend to meet the right girl - and so his domineering mother is increasingly worried that he's not going to produce an heir to carry on the business.

Then he meets Rose, a gleeful, joyous thief who he has been contracted to kill. Victor finds himself unable to complete the contract and when someone else is sent to finish the job, Victor shoots him and ends up protecting Rose.

Worse still, he finds that he's picked up an apprentice who has the mistaken idea that Victor is "undercover".

Now on the run, after a difficult night in a posh hotel, the oddball trio make their way to Victor's country home to hide out.

WILD TARGET (12A) is a British comedy with Bill Nighy as Victor, Rupert Grint as his apprentice, Emily Blunt as Rose and Rupert Everett as the unhappy client who has paid Victor to dispose of Rose.

Eileen Atkins, Martin Freeman and Gregor Fisher co-star.

Producer Martin Pope discovered the story through his friend, Philippe Martin, who had made the original French version of Pierre Salvadori's comedy some 15 years earlier.

Pope says: "He showed me the film, and I thought it was hilarious."

Nighy says of the new version: "It's a really rare thing. Any good script is rare. And it's beautifully written. Lucinda Coxon [the writer] is brilliant. It's beautifully dry and funny and really smart. Everything that's supposed to work, works. It's tender and funny and deeply stupid, which is good fun, hopefully, for the audience.