One can feel some amount of sympathy toward actors like Sam Worthington.

Worthington was a once-promising name who got a shot or two at becoming a leading man, only to go bust and resort to the more-accepting havens of forgettable flicks such as The Hunter’s Prayer.

It might suck, but fair play to Worthington for showing his capability in non-leading roles (Hackshaw Ridge and Everest) and prestige TV (the running Manhunt: Unabomber series on the Discovery channel).

This thrill-less thriller sees the former star of Avatar and Terminator: Salvation play the role of Stephen Lucas, a conflicted hit-man hired to murder a teenage girl, Ella Hatto (Odeya Rush).

Though both show capable acting chops through a good deal of grim emoting (too much so in the case of Worthington, but we’ll get there in a bit), the pairing sits less comfortably.

As for the story, which is based on the novel For the Dogs by Kevin Wignall, it relies heavily on the supposedly-growing father-daughter dynamic between the assassin and the target. But the minimal amount of chemistry between the two leads robs the story of its intended underlying tension.

Worthington never plays his character as anything more than a cliché of the tired conscious hit-men trope.

His grimness is too dramatically determined, which the actor seems to see as his strongest trait, hence his lack of success in delivering a multi-dimensional leading man. This is less-than-entertaining to sit through, much less root for.

The lack of chemistry notwithstanding, it is difficult to get into the Lucas character’s sense of determination.

Supposedly finding it difficult to murder a girl who reminds him of his own, there is no evidence to suggest that sentiment — no sense that there is some sort of hidden affection toward Ella underneath the solemn exterior.

Director Jonathan Mostow, who did much better with Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines, and screenwriters Michael Ferris and John Brancato do not help much.

The big bad villain in all of this hullaballoo is drug lord Addison (Allen Leech on autopilot), who threatens to murder Lucas’ wife and daughter should he fail to kill his target.

But between all the shootouts and fist-fights, the script forgets to show any interaction between Lucas and his family. His love for them is assumed, but movies don’t work that way.

Had Lucas’ character shown a deeper sense of something — maybe regret, honor, or even a generic cinematic morality — it would have felt like something was at stake.

We do get glimpses of Lucas’ fragile soul, his drug addiction and veteran background. But these are far too underwritten, without much function to the overall story and characters.

Rush has shown herself an able actress, but here she is given the task of acting out every negative assumption jaded oldsters have about teenagers.

Short of complaining about kids on its lawn, the story wants to show Ella as being conflicted and angry, but her role is both too generic and broad to pinpoint anything tangible about the character.

The best or better parts of the movie are the action scenes.

Mostow knows his way around bust-ups and shootouts. They are brisk and dynamic without being overwhelming or dizzying.

Still, the director does not try to do anything he, and countless others, haven’t done before in an action scene. Combined with poor story and delivery, it’s hard to see these action scenes as anything other than an ambient blitzkrieg of one brawl after another.

After deciding not kill his target with the kind of offhand no-reasoning we’ve accepted from these kinds of movies, Lucas turns from predator to prey.

He must run from a fellow assassin, with Ella in tow across Europe in some sort of Bourne-styled adventure.

The Hunter’s Prayer could have been a mildly-entertaining romp of B-thriller goodness if it had a sense of awareness about itself. Instead, it wants to be taken seriously without putting in the work.

You know, kind of like what its creators must think teenage girls all are.

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The Hunter’s Prayer

Director: Jonathan Mostow
Starring: Sam Worthington, Odeya Rush, Allen Leech
English with Indonesian subtitles, 90 minutes

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