Erased (2013)

Ben Logan (Aaron Eckhart) works for a security testing company in Belgium. His teen daughter, Amy (Liana Liberato)attends high school. One day when Ben goes to work he finds out his company is missing and never existed.Being a former CIA agent, Ben investigates. He ends up on the lam battling the CIA, authorities, and a corporation that all want him and his daughter dead. Amy quickly goes from a snarky teen to Internet sleuth.The film consists of a lot of double agents. The twists are shown to the audience which takes away from any mystery aspect. It is the "Bourne" type of film with one man against the system. This one has the addition of a daughter.This is a fairly decent film for those who like the "Bourne" type of film, especially if your thirst was not satisfied with that latest 4th "Bourne" installment.

This movie fails in the first 10 minutes. I switched it off immediately. We see a man (presumably the protagonist) and his assistant in a high-tech lab presenting their investigation into a number of CIA-created super-security devices which they use to keep America safe. He demonstrates they all have fatal flaws and that his team were able to defeat all of them, using some scientific tools and techniques. None of these are even remotely credible, as any engineer or scientist would attest, but OK, suspend disbelief. Then he reveals privately to the head of the CIA team that all of the devices are at risk BECAUSE NO PATENTS HAVE BEEN REGISTERED.Does not a single person associated with the movie know what a Patent is? To register a patent, you must publish a detailed explanation of the device to show that it is unique, and that it is based on original work. Not only does it not keep the invention secret, it actually publishes exactly what it is and how it works, IT GUARANTEES THAT THE WORK IS EXPLAINED IN DETAIL TO ANYONE IN THE WORLD WHO ASKS FOR A COPY.A patent only protects an invention commercially. If someone else claims the same invention as their own and tries to sell devices using the patented design or process, the patent owner can force them to stop production, and also sue for damages. The very countries that the CIA would want to stop, China Russia, North Korea and so on, are immune from patent claims because they simply do not acknowledge the authority of the US Patent office, or any US Laws.To keep an invention secret, one has to do exactly that, tell no one how it works, even those who are manufacturing it. And definitely NOT Patent it.

Ben Logan (Aaron Eckhart) is a security technology researcher in Belgium for the Halgate Group. His daughter Amy (Liana Liberato) is not happy with the move after losing her mother. He reports a missing patent in their tech to his boss Derek Kohler. Later, he discovers that the office suddenly cleared out and the head office has no records of him. A co-worker kidnaps them but Ben manages to kill him. Clues lead to his former life with co-worker Anna Brandt (Olga Kurylenko) and a vast murderous conspiracy.There is a bit of Bourne and Taken but less. It has Eckhart. It should be good but it's only passable. The setup is interesting but any early momentum slowly fades away. It becomes formulaic without anything new or particularly great. The action is lacking something special. Having the daughter presents some potential but it ends up being more of the same. This needs some imagination and sizzle to elevate it to a higher level.

I couldn't work out why Jean Reno wasn't credited in the cast. I would have staked my mortgage on it, but of course it's not Jean Reno but his dopplebanger Eric Godon. My god do they look and act alike, even the build is similar. - That's all I really wanted to say, but I have to fill a bit of space to get this past the censors. 7 out of 10 for me. The script is similar to quite a few movies where whole departments get wiped out except for our hero who goes it alone to reveal corruption at the highest levels blah blah blah. I liked the idea of his daughter being the sidekick and the way he has to spill the beans to her about his past. Her naivety irritated me at first, but also saved his bacon a couple of times. Of course Olga is hot and a real pleasure on the eyes. Lots of holes in the script of course, like cooking up all that plastic explosive in someone's kitchen. And that stuffs heavy, so the exec carrying the briefcase would have suspected something.