Becoming The Muse

The Painter Movie Review

The Painter is a 2024 American action thriller film directed by Kimani Ray Smith and written by Brian Buccellato. It was released in the United States on the 5^th of January 2024.

The plot is centered around a former CIA agent who becomes a painter, after retiring from the company when his marriage collapses, after the tragic loss of an unborn baby. A mysterious lady claiming to be his daughter brings back his ties to the past and the shadowy world of secrets and black ops projects, he thought he had left behind.

The Good

We have seen, a beekeeper, a bricklayer and now a retired agent takes up … painting.. Looks like we are the golden era of ex-CIA and handy crafts in action thrillers. You never know what lethal training the seemingly ordinary man next door might have… is there a name for this genre?

The Painter has a fast paced action plot that has an interesting premise and although following the regular tropes, introduces a couple of interesting and unique perspectives. The Painter has a hypersensitive hearing after a childhood incident which resulted in him being recruited, trained and or reconditioned into a lethal weapon.

Jon Voight commands a presence that is unpredictable, you never know whether to hate him or love him with an ambiguous role that moves in the grey spaces.

The Bad

Hasn’t this movie been done before?

There isn’t much of chemistry in the bond between The Painter and the woman who claims to be his daughter that we never get that much invested their relationship to care for its outcome. 

The movie is riddled with plot holes and wants the viewer to take rather large leaps of logic as it glazes over a multitude of subplots that could have potentially made it less generic if developed but instead leaves you wondering if its a spy thriller, a romantic tragedy or a dysfunctional family melodrama?

The lead character’s hypersentivity which is hinted as an almost super power is mostly used as a jump-scare prop and there’s a villain whose idea of being intense is to listen to techno beats over his headphones.

And then there this Internship Programme which does not get any explanation but might be a great place to expand on if the movie gets a sequel as its ending hints at.

The Ugly

It’s a now recycled trope to have a retired agent who has taken up a titular day job reluctantly forced back into using his more lethal skills.

The movie could have done so much more than show how visual and hearing impairments can be more than an impediment instead of simply weaponising it.

Showcasing of such skillsets almost always results in gratuitous violence…

Final Thoughts

The Painter is a fun action thriller trying to add a bit of twist to the formula.. with a sequel friendly ending… it might be back.

Whats with the titles ?