Chemistry counts for an awful lot in a romantic comedy, and I’d be hard-pressed to name a more compatible recent screen couple than Anna Kendrick and Sam Rockwell (in spite of their nearly 17-year age difference). Kendrick’s Martha is on the rebound after catching her boyfriend in the act with her roommate — and Rockwell’s “Mr. Right” (as he calls himself) is a renegade hit man on the run from his boss (Tim Roth) after Mr. Right decides he’d rather rub out those paying for assassinations. They meet cute when he’s juggling condoms in a drug store, and Martha is only mildly irked to learn that half the contract killers in New Orleans (played by the likes of Anson Mount and RZA) are after the guy she’s just started dating. This sort of violent comedy — think “True Lies’’ meets “Grosse Pointe Blank’’ — is tough to pull off, but Spanish director Paco Cabezas and screenwriter Max Landis (“American Ultra’’) nail a screwball fantasy vibe that stops just inches short of downright silliness. Rockwell, who literally dances his way through battle scenes with guns and knives, hasn’t had a role this satisfying in years. And he’s found a perfect partner in the sweetly ditzy Kendrick — they’d be perfect together in that remake of “The Thin Man’’ that was announced a few years ago.
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