The definition of a “white elephant” is an unwanted possession that is difficult to get rid of. It is a brave filmmaker who will call his film that, as it can both prove prophetic and give reviewers the opportunity to snark. The question is, who, or what in the film is the eponymous “white elephant,” possessed but not desired and yet difficult to dispose of?

White Elephant nominally concerns two cops on a stakeout witnessing hitman Carlo Garcia (Vadhir Derbez) leave the scene of an assassination of a rival mob’s boss. Because Garcia can be linked to mob boss Arnold (Bruce Willis), the cops must be eliminated.  One is easily taken care of, but Vanessa (Olga Kurylenko) is resourceful and dangerous. Helping her is Gabriel Tancredi (Michael Rooker), an aging widower, Carlos’s mentor, and former-military-turned-mob-enforcer who begins the film seemingly the primary bad guy, but, deciding he has done enough harm in the world, moves to help Vanessa survive.

Because this will be one of Willis’s final roles since his health challenges have led to his retirement from acting, attention will be given to him in this film, and he certainly delivers in the role. However, the film is really Gabriel and Vanessa’s, and, by extension, Rooker and Kurylenko, who always deliver great performances. The violence is well choreographed, and the plot, such as it is, moves along. The chemistry between Rooker and Kurylenko is solid, and the overall acting in the film is well done. The issue is perhaps the script. Because the focus is on the violence (the climactic fight between Gabriel and Vanessa on one-side and a veritable army of military weapon-equipped hitmen on the other goes past Peckinpaugh into cartoonish), not much is given to the performers to do.

Kurylenko and Rooker deliver, but most other characters are stereotypical dialog tags that exist to either shoot, be shot, or run from the shots.  The film deploys its modest budget well, but as a result of the focus on the shooting and not the reasons for the shooting, the tension is not really sustained between the scenes of violence. In the end it is Rooker who emerges as the highlight of White Elephant – a nuanced performance of a hitman feeling loss himself and deciding to transform into something better. He just needs to go through the equivalent of the Valentine’s Day Massacre to get there. If anything raises this picture above late-night television movie on the higher cable channels, it is his acting.

6 out of 10