What would you do if you had three days to kill?

“3 Days to Kill” is an attempt at melding the James Bond movies with Liam Neeson in “Taken”. Ethan Renner (Kevin Costner) is a dying CIA agent who goes into retirement after being diagnosed with brain cancer. He sees this moment as an opportunity to rekindle his relationship with his estranged wife, Christine (Connie Nielson), and teenage daughter, Zoey (Hailee Steinfeld).

Renner is lured out of his early retirement when the CIA offers him a life or death situation. He can either accept a mission to capture a terrorist in exchange for an experimental drug that could lengthen his life or decline the mission and die within three months. This becomes tricky because just as he’s agreed to take up the operation, his wife decides to take a business trip and leaves him in charge of Zoey. Renner now has to balance being a parent and keeping his life of an agent secret.

The screenwriters did a horrific job of getting the message across. I felt as if I were watching snippets of different clips thrown together in no particular order. Renner had no clear identity in this movie. He went from being a frustrated father to being a crazy, demanding brute who abused his captives in order to get answers. If not for some scenes in the movie that showed the struggle of parenthood, that simple message of the struggle between family life and a job would have been lost. The movie is choppy and disconnected.

The struggle of making up for lost years with his daughter is seen when he’s about to finish a mission and “I Don’t Care” starts playing from his cell phone. Instead of ignoring his daughter’s phone call and putting his job first, he makes the decision to meet her instead at an amusement park. Another touching scene that also depicts this dilemma is when Renner is teaching Zoey how to ride a bike and she asks, “Why did you leave me and mom?”

Even at the end of the movie when Renner has caught the terrorist, he lets him go and tells the CIA, “I’m done killing for you,” and makes the decision to retire again. He is seen together with his wife and family during the holidays, ultimately choosing his family over his job.