Bullet Points: Erased (2012)

When you think of Aaron Eckhart and the world of action entertainment, you probably think of his work as President Benjamin Asher in Olympus Has Fallen and London Has Fallen.

But before his theme song was “Hail to the Chief”, Eckhart got to play the action hero in 2012’s Erased…

• Our Hero: Aaron Eckhart plays Ben Logan, a former employee of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA for those in the know) who has moved to Antwerp, Belgium to start a new life. Ben’s estranged daughter Amy (Liana Liberato), who had been living with her mother prior to her mother’s death, now lives with Ben and both are adjusting to this new arrangement. Ben works for a division of the multinational Halgate Corporation… or at least he thinks he does.
• Peanuts: Single dad Ben has a time management challenge when he is stuck working late one night… the same night of an awards ceremony at Amy’s school. Ben ends up missing Amy getting first place for her photo essay but manages to track her down at a local hangout with some of her friends, including a young man named Nabil (Yassine Fadel), who may be more than just a friend. On the drive home, Amy complains about being hungry. Ben offers her some cookies that someone at the office baked… Amy has one, but there’s one problem… Amy also has a peanut allergy and the cookie she ate contained peanuts. So instead of going home, the Logans end up spending the night at the hospital.

• Burn Notice: The next morning when Amy is released, Ben makes what he plans to be a quick detour to his office to pick up a package that was supposed to be delivered… but when Ben gets there everyone and everything is gone. When he calls the office, he finds out the phones have been disconnected. Obviously something is very wrong here, so Ben and Amy make an impromptu visit to Halgate’s European HQ in Brussels. When he gets there they deny ever having an office in Antwerp, or having Ben Logan or his boss in their employee database. WTF?
• Pretty Boy Floyd: Ben is completely bumfuzzled in the lobby of the Halgate building when he is approached by a familiar face… it is Floyd. Floyd (Alexander Fehling) was one of the people who worked at the seemingly non-existent Antwerp office with Ben. Floyd will be able to help clear this up. Not exactly… Floyd instead pulls a gun on Ben and Amy and tells them they are going for a drive. This is where we get our first big action sequence and learn that Ben Logan was not just a pencil pusher for the CIA as he does what he needs to do to neutralize the Floyd situation. The result is a spectacular car crash and Amy witnessing her father snapping Floyd’s neck.
• Unlocking the Mystery: Ben finds a key in Floyd’s pocket, the key is for a locker at a train station in Antwerp, which is perfect because Ben and Amy are going to need to take the train back anyway. Once they arrive at the station, Ben finds a hitlist inside the locker… on the list is Ben, everyone who worked in his department, plus Amy! Ben and Amy’s next stop is to locate all of Ben’s co-workers and conveniently they find them in one place… THE MORGUE! That’s about the time another assassin (Walter, formerly the security guard Ben brought coffee to every morning) tries to cross Ben and Amy’s names off the hitlist. Spoiler Alert: He’s unsuccessful.

• Kill Squad: Ben’s former boss in the CIA, Anna Brandt (Olga Kurylenko, Oblivion) shows up in Antwerp looking for Ben. We learn that Ben actually worked in a CIA kill squad and was decommissioned after he refused to carry out orders. Anna was seemingly helping Ben out by getting him the job with Halgate… but in reality Ben was unknowingly helping her steal classified CIA documents for Halgate CEO, James Halgate (Garrick Hagon, Ninja). These revelations are a lot for Ben and Amy to swallow… in fact, Amy is so freaked out to learn that her father was a killer all these years that she takes off… and unfortunately for her, the bad guys end up catching up to her before her dad does. But Ben manages to get the documents that James Halgate so desperately wants.
• The Exchange: The movie’s finale centers around the exchange between James Halgate and Ben Logan as Ben has agreed to give up the documents as long as Amy is returned to him safely. The end result of this exchange is an extremely satisfying ending. The ending was so good, it took Erased from average action film, to slightly above action film for me.

Aaron Eckhart channeled his inner Liam Neeson and delivered as the movie’s action hero. But to me the real stand out of the movie was Garrick Hogan. Hogan’s James Halgate doesn’t have a ton of screen time, but the man maximized his minutes and made me hate him in a hurry.

Let’s maximize the potential of this review with some Bonus Bullet Points…

• AKA: Erased is known as The Expatriate in the UK, France and Italy.
• Directed By: Erased was directed by Philipp Stölzl. Stölzl’s directorial career began by directing music videos for Faith No More, Rammstein and Garbage. The Garbage music video Stölzl directed was for their song “The World is Not Enough”, which was the official song of the 1999 James Bond flick, The World is Not Enough.
• If You Ever: …wanted to see Aaron Eckhart straddle another man in bed, then Erased is the movie for you.