Someone is assassinating commie journalists in Europe and making it appear as if the CIA is responsible.  O’Malley (Tim Blake Nelson) of the CIA suspects that the assassin is Michael Radek (Clifton Collins, Jr.), a former intelligence asset who faked his own death but who has now returned and is seeking vengeance on the Agency for the death of his wife and daughter.  O’Malley decides that Radek’s friend and former CIA handler, Steve Vail (Aaron Eckhart), is the only man who can track Radek down.

The problem is that Vail is as disillusioned with intelligence work as Radek.  Vail walked away from the Agency years ago and now spends his time listening to jazz and working as a bricklayer.  Vail explains that, when working with bricks, everything is predictable and everything fits together perfectly.  It’s the opposite of the chaotic world of spies and assassinations.  O’Malley think that Vail is full of crap and I would be tempted to agree if not for the fact that Aaron Eckhart is one of the few actors who can make you believe anything that he says.

At first, Vail refuses to help but then Radek sends a group of assassins to kill him.  That changes Vail’s mind.  Along with an inexperienced supervisor named Kate (Nina Dobrev), Vail heads to Greece to not only track down Radek but also discover the identity of a mole in the CIA.

The Bricklayer was advertised as being a return-to-form of sorts for director Renny Harlin.  In many ways, it’s a typical Harlin film.  For the most part, it looks good.  Some of the action scenes are exciting.  A car flips over and explodes.  At the same time, it never quite reaches the heights of Harlin’s heyday.  This film has neither the grandeur of Die Hard 2, the romantic sparks of The Long Kiss Goodnight, or the energy of Deep Blue Sea.  The film’s low-budget is definitely a factor in that.  There are scenes in the film that look about as cheap as some of the movies that Bruce Willis was making before he announced his retirement.

That said, The Bricklayer does what it does with efficiency and Renny Harlin still knows how to keep the action moving.  Though the story is a bit too familiar to really be intriguing, Aaron Eckhart makes for a surprisingly believable secret agent.  One thing I especially liked about Eckhart’s performance is that he didn’t go for the “grim” stereotype of the former intelligence agent.  As played by Aaron Eckhart, Steve Vail may have had his regrets but he wasn’t some sort of emotionless zombie.  He enjoyed jazz.  He enjoyed the work that he did as a bricklayer.  Though the rules of the genre demand that he and Nina Dobrev start the film as mild adversaries, they quickly developed a likable chemistry.

The Bricklayer is the epitome of an okay, middle of the road movie.  It’s neither good nor bad enough to be especially memorable but it’s entertaining enough if you’ve got 100 minutes to kill.