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At times he is oddly reminiscent of Edward Norton, another actor who has specialized in playing nerdy, dweeby types who sometimes let their dark side show. In the movie's opening moments, when Wesley tells us how pathetic his life is, he makes a point of noting that the table in his apartment comes from Ikea, and the links this movie makes between Swedish furniture, an empty and unfulfilling life, and the need to find meaning and purpose in life through violence bring Fight Club to mind. And the film ends on a morally ambiguous note that is reminiscent of the new Hulk.

Common as The Gunsmith

The moral ambiguity of Wanted is also reminiscent of Night Watch and Day Watch, the two phenomenally successful Russian fantasy-horror-action films that were Kazakh-born director Timur Bekmambetov's main claim to fame before he made this, his first full-fledged Hollywood movie. But here, the ambiguity is packaged in a tighter, more focused narrative, and it gets increasingly engaging as it goes.

Sloan (Morgan Freeman), the seemingly wise old man who runs the Fraternity, tells Wesley that his cult of assassins is helping to keep balance in the world; when the looms of Fate dictate that someone must be killed, the Fraternity must obey, trusting that their obedience will help to preserve a sense of order in the universe. Fox even tells Wesley a personal anecdote that seems to validate this belief. But alas, the assassins are now engaged in a lopsided civil war—Cross is a former member of the Fraternity who has gone rogue and is now bringing it down, killing one of his former colleagues at a time—and all their attempts to keep the balance of the universe result in lots of property destruction and, we assume, unintended deaths. Eventually the Fraternity's attempts to eliminate Cross lead to the mother of all train wrecks, and just when you might be thinking, "If this is order, I'd hate to see chaos," the film throws a few extra curveballs—or would that be curvebullets?—your way.

What happens after that point would take us into serious spoiler territory, but suffice it to say that the film raises some really interesting questions regarding destiny, how we submit to it, how we try to control it, and how we can discern it—or even whether we should bother. And it concludes with some really interesting visuals that put a whole new twist on some of its earlier visual and narrative conceits. The film certainly isn't for everyone, what with its morally dubious premise and its R-rated violence and profanity, and the plot certainly has its share of holes, but for those who like the thrill of shutting off their brain and then discovering that they might be thinking deep thoughts anyway, Wanted is a more than worthy diversion.

Talk About It

1. "I don't know who I am," says Wesley Gibson at one point. How does joining the Fraternity give him a sense of identity? How does what he learns later on affect his sense of identity? Where does his identity finally come from in the end—from himself, or from someone else? Where does your own identity come from?
2. "We don't know how far the ripples of our actions go," says Fox. "Kill one, maybe save a thousand." What do you make of her statements? Given that she and the others are blindly following the dictates of Fate, how is this similar to, or different from, the idea that the ends justify the means? How so?
3. How is Fate, as envisioned by this film, similar to, or different from, God? Note the scene where Wesley says, "Kill them all, and let Fate sort them out"—which echoes a popular phrase that usually refers to God rather than Fate.

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