★★★★
“Jane Wick, but it’s complicated.”
Klara (Kurylenko) is a French soldier who returns home after a tour of duty in the Middle East. But the homeland security mission to which she’s assigned – basically, patrolling sea-fronts and shopping malls – hardly seems like a credible use of her talents. However, she’s also suffering from PTSD, and it’s easy to see why the authorities decided she was better off kept away from the front lines. Then Klara’s sister, Tania (Lima), is found on the beach in a coma after having been raped. The evidence points to Yvan, the son of prominent Russian businessman, Leonod Kadnikov (Nabokoff). But the cops can do nothing, as the Kadnikov’s have diplomatic passports. Klara, needless to say, operates under no such restrictions and vows that if the justice system won’t make the perpetrator pay, then she will.
On the one hand, this is a straightforward revenge flick, though it’s revenge by proxy, with Klara not directly the victim. However, what I liked is that, while she obviously has the skill-set to pull off her mission, she’s far from invincible, even if the Kadnikov’s need to fire their security advisor. Indeed, there are points at which Karla’s straight-line approach to the problem, causes more problems than it solves. For instance, contrast the nightclub fight in John Wick with the one here. John breezed through the scenario virtually unscathed, dispatching victims with ease, in a plethora of headshots. Klara spends what seems like an eternity brawling against two opponents, and never even gets out of the bathroom. That said, the violence here packs a genuine wallop, with some startling moments which left me feeling certain someone was going home with a concussion that day. It’s definitely quality over quantity.
Former Bond girl Kurylenko has graced these pages before, in The Courier and The Assassin Next Door, but this is probably her best effort yet. She is in almost every scene, and does a solid job of holding the audience’s attention, with a sympathetic portrayal of a damaged, yet still extremely dangerous, heroine. She also demonstrates her flair for language, switching effortlessly between French, Russian and Arabic. In real life, she speaks English and Spanish too, as well as bits of others. In 2013 on Twitter, she said, “I want to speak ALL the languages.” [She also knows how to say “I love squirrels” in many of them…]
Coming in at a brisk 80 minutes, it does still take a little while to reach the meat of its topic, The assault at the core of the film (which, incidentally, we don’t see – and nor do we need to) takes place not far short of half-way in, though the pace never feels as if it’s dragging. I also have some questions about the ending, which out of nowhere seems to suggest a Nikita-like program of black ops assassins, created by the government out of captured murderers. Though to be honest, I’d not mind seeing such a sequel, and definitely would not want to be the one on whom Klara was unleashed.
Dir: Julien Leclercq
Star: Olga Kurylenko, Marilyn Lima, Michel Nabokoff, Carole Weyers