Plot

A hit-man tries to retire but a beautiful thief may change his plans.

Victor Maynard (Bill Nighy) is a middle-aged, solitary assassin, who lives to please his formidable mother, Louisa (Dame Eileen Atkins), despite his own peerless reputation for lethal efficiency. His professional routine is interrupted when he finds himself drawn to one of his intended victims, Rose (Emily Blunt). He spares her life, unexpectedly acquiring in the process a young apprentice, Tony (Rupert Grint). Believing Victor to be a private detective, his two new companions tag along, while he attempts to thwart the murderous attentions of his unhappy client.

In London, fifty-five year-old professional killer Victor Maynard (Bill Nighy) is a lonely and methodic hitman that comes from a lineage of killers and lives in the country. He is considered the best and most expensive killer in London. When thief Rose (Emily Blunt) lures powerful gangster Ferguson (Rupert Everett) and sells a fake Rembrandt to him for nine hundred thousand pounds sterling, he contracts Maynard to kill her. He follows Rose and fails in his attempt; but soon he feels attracted for her and spares her life. Meanwhile, Ferguson sends his two bodyguards to kill Rose in a parking garage, but Maynard saves her, helped by the car washer Tony (Rupert Grint). Maynard feels potential in Tony and invites him to be his apprentice and Rose and Tony believe he is a private detective. They flee from the bodyguard that has survived, and Maynard decides to protect Rose and Tony. Soon Victor is pressed by his mother Louisa Maynard (Dame Eileen Atkins), who is worried about her family reputation, while Ferguson hires two sadistic killers to hunt Rose and Victor down. But Victor and Rose seem to be made for each other.—Claudio Carvalho, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

Groomed by his parents Louisa and Felix Maynard to continue in the family business which a domineering Louisa believes is inherent in their blood, fifty-five year old Victor Maynard indeed became a hit-man. The one thing a now widowed, infirmed, care home residing Louisa laments is that Victor never fathered any children to carry on the family business after him, Victor too preoccupied with work to even think about a personal life. Victor's mode of operation is to remain anonymous to his clients to protect himself. His latest client, Ferguson, hires him to kill a con artist named Rose, who bilked Ferguson out of £900,000 in an art forgery scam. After a few failed attempts, Victor ends up instead going on the run not only with Rose but an innocent bystander named Tony, as Ferguson's personal thugs are on their tail to do the job that Victor couldn't seem to do. Rose and Tony, an inherently peaceful man but who is somewhat lost in life, have no idea that Victor is a hit-man who was hired to kill her, they believing he a private investigator, she ultimately hiring him to protect her in she never having been in such trouble before. As the trio tries to evade those after them, who eventually includes Victor's "replacement", Hector Dixon, Victor has to decide what to do with his life in this potentially career-ending gaffe, those thoughts which may be affected by his relationships with Rose and Tony and if they ever learn the truth about him.—Huggo

Hitman Victor Maynard (Bill Nighy) is proud of his family's tradition in the profession, and is endlessly reminded of his heritage by his interfering mother, Louisa (Dame Eileen Atkins). When he has problems completing a contract on Rose (Emily Blunt), he is very annoyed to find another company was brought in to complete the job. Impulsively defending his former target, he finds he is now in danger himself. This is new territory for him - protecting a kleptomaniac wild cannon, or, to put it another way, a head-strong but very attractive young lady.—J-26

Victor Maynard (Bill Nighy) is an expert and effective assassin living a lonely life in accordance with his family's business. Victor follows a family line of professional assassins, and he completes his assignments quickly and without remorse. One afternoon, after killing one of his targets, he hesitates in killing the pet parrot, Roger, and instead takes him as a gift to his mother, Louisa (Eileen Atkins) a formidable woman who was, until recently, also Victor's housemate. In celebration of his 55th birthday, she gives him a leather bound book with newspaper clippings of each of his kills from his first to his most recent, leaving pages for future hits to be included. She also expresses concern that he might be gay, wondering why he hasn't produced a successor.

Rose (Emily Blunt) is a not-so-average girl with a talent for thievery. Her most recent theft involves the sale of a fake Rembrandt painting (painted by her friend in the Restoration Department of the National Gallery) to Ferguson (Rupert Everett), managing to swindle him out of £900,000. Ferguson soon discovers the swap and hires the best hitman, Victor Maynard, to dispose of her. Victor takes the case and immediately tracks Rose down, missing several opportunities to kill her, and accidentally killing a random market stall customer in a changing room. He follows her to a balcony opposite her hotel room and tries to shoot her through the window, but is interrupted by the arrival of the front doorman. Victor sets up a microphone and headset to keep her under surveillance, but falls asleep, unable to listen to their noisy lovemaking. He wakes the following morning, just as she is leaving. He has the opportunity to shoot but hesitates.

His mother, Louisa, is upset by this missed target (and has apparently murdered Roger with a knitting needle) and suggests that Victor apologize to his employer and offer to do the hit for free. He tracks Rose down in a parking garage where he sees another hitman ready to kill her. He takes the preemptive shot, killing the other assassin. He and Rose get into her car, only to be forced out again by Mike (Gregor Fisher), another assassin hiding in the back seat of her Mini. Mike knocks Victor's gun away and lines them up against the wall to be shot and killed, but instead is wounded by Tony (Rupert Grint), an apparently homeless young man who had picked up the dead man's gun. Saying it was his first time handling a firearm, he impresses Victor enough for Victor to consider making Tony his protégé, but he sends Tony home and Victor and Rose flee. Mike starts firing at them and they nearly run over Tony on his way out of the garage, forcing him to join the ride. Rose offers Victor his price of 30,000 pounds a week for her protection, believing that he is merely a private detective. They travel to a luxury hotel where they can lie low, but by chance get a room on the same floor as Ferguson. Ferguson hires Dixon (Martin Freeman), reputed to be second only to Maynard in proficiency, to kill Rose and Maynard. After several close calls, Mike, who is also Ferguson's bodyguard, discovers their whereabouts when he spots a pair of boots that Rose had stolen from his dead partner. Tony is attacked in the bathroom and nearly drowned in the bathtub by Mike, but he turns the tables and accidentally shoots Mike's ear off before the three of them escape the hotel. Ferguson and Mike pursue them in a high-speed chase through the streets of London until Mike loses control and crashes, sending the pair to the hospital.

They travel to Maynard's home, a quaint farm far in the country, where his furniture is shrink-wrapped and his cat, Snowy, resides with him. Maynard takes Tony on as his apprentice in "private detective" work. One night, Rose is attacked by Louisa, who had come back to the house to finish what her son had started. He eventually talks her down and after she leaves, the three of them work on becoming friends. Rose and Tony help Victor celebrate his birthday, and, after a brief period of sexual confusion between Tony and Maynard, Victor falls in love with and sleeps with Rose. Afterward, his attitude becomes more cheerful, and Victor peels off the plastic coverings on all of his furniture and opens up the house. Meanwhile, Rose snoops around Victor's room, finding the leather book that his mother had given him and learning that she was actually his target for assassination. She also finds Victor's father's first gun, a Broomhandle Mauser, and takes it for self-protection. She storms out of the house after making it clear that she trusts neither Victor nor Tony, and returns to the National Gallery, only to find her friend dead and Dixon and his assistant, Fabian, (Geoff Bell) waiting for her. They quickly return to Victor's home, and Tony and Victor gain the upper hand when Louisa appears, killing Fabian with a machine gun. Dixon withdraws the old gun Rose had taken from Victor's room and fires at Victor. It backfires, sending the bolt into his skull. Victor, Tony and Rose bury the pair in the back yard and return to their lives.

Three years later, Victor and Rose are married with a son named Angel and Tony has moved in with them. While Angel is playing one morning, Tony comes outside asking Victor and Rose where the cat had gone off to. They look at Angel in awe as he is innocently patting soft dirt into the yard, suggesting he killed and buried the cat. Victor smiles with pride.