Author: Jim McLennan

Girls With Guns Calendars 2026

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Welcome to our sixteenth annual round-up of girls with guns calendars. Dear lord, I have grandchildren younger than this feature. :) Not an enormous amount has changed since last time. Plans to move appear to have gone on the back burner for now. In part because our son has moved back in with us. I was assured, by a variety of sit-coms, that hilarity would ensue from this scenario. But it appears to have led purely to significantly increased Internet usage, and dishes being “left to soak” in the sink. Though our daughter is getting married on New Year’s Eve. Let’s hope it sticks this time, because we are not funding another wedding…

On the calendar front, all of the top contenders seem to be back for 2026, led – as ever! – by Tac Girls, who seem to have been doing this for longer than I have! A couple of no-shows at the bottom end of the pile, but I did find a couple of ptenti

Below, you’ll find prices (generally excluding shipping), sample images and links to purchase for all the calendars we could find. We’ll add more if we see them, feel free to email us if you know of any others. 

TAC GIRLS

Amazon link – $19.95 [though you may be able to find some coupons on TacGirls.com]

The Tactical Girls 2026 Bikini Gun Calendar has 13 months (1/26-1/27) of Beautiful Girls and Exotic Weaponry! Every Calendar includes a 12×24″ pull out mini-poster of cover model Natasha – slides out, no perforations to tear or staples to pull.

The 2026 Tactical Girls Calendar brings you 13 months of gorgeous pinup models with some of the world’s most exotic weaponry in realistic tactical settings. Includes the EAA MC14TX an AK-74 and an AR Pistol from Black Rain Ordnance. You’ll find sexy zombie hunters, secret agents, army girls and tributes to your favorite female action movie heroines cradling AR-15 carbines, battle rifles, machine guns, tactical pistols, and sniper rifles, 12 x 24 inches open!

Includes over 100 trivia dates from military, law enforcement and firearms history like The Battle of the Bulge, The Gunfight at the OK Corral and Samuel Colt’s birthday. Each month has detailed specs and notes about the weapon and the Tactical Girl’s Mission. Makes perfect Holiday gift for the Marine, Soldier, Sailor, Airman, Police Officer, Shooting Enthusiast, Hunter, Airsoft Player or History buff on your list. Fill that 2 foot square empty space on your Man Cave, garage, shop, barracks, armory or tent wall with 13 months of Girls and Guns. 100% produced and printed in the U.S.A. 10% of the print run of these calendars are donated to deployed soldiers and organizations that support them, notably AmericanSnipers.org.

WEAPON OUTFITTERS

WeaponOutfitters.com – $39.95

As last year, they have three different versions available: one (below) is PG-13 rated, while the other two are R-rated. “Carrying on the fine tradition of beautiful women with cool weaponry in calendars into the modern era, the Weapon Outfitters calendars have been a mainstay of the firearms world for over a decade, and we continue this fine tradition with the 2026 calendars. With 12 months of high resolution, studio and natural light photography of models with guns, this would make an excellent addition to any gun room, garage, or office if your HR department is REALLY cool.” Full disclosure: I was sent copies of all three. I am very happy. :) 

GUNS AND GIRLS

Ebay.com – $15.32

The 2026 Guns & Girls Deluxe Wall Calendar is a must-have for enthusiasts of firearms and beautiful women. This high-quality calendar features stunning photographs of gorgeous models posing with various guns, from classic revolvers to modern assault rifles. Each month showcases a different theme, ensuring a year-round celebration of these two iconic American passions. With its large 16″ x 24″ size , the vibrant images are sure to captivate your attention. As an added bonus, this deluxe edition includes a free poster, perfect for adorning your wall or workspace. Indulge in the perfect blend of power and beauty with the 2025 Guns & Girls Deluxe Wall Calendar.

DILLON PRECISION

DillonPrecision.com – $24.95

I’m going to recycle last year’s joke about Dillon Precision, who limit the information regarding their product to: “Dimensions: 13.5 X 26.5”. They clearly believe a picture is worth a thousand words…

ZAHAL GIRLS

zahal.org – $35.00

We are proud to unveil the ZAHAL Girls 2026 Calendar – our most exclusive edition yet, printed on premium glossy paper with an all-new, refined design. This stunning calendar combines the unmatched authenticity of former IDF women with cutting-edge tactical gear, captured in bold, contemporary settings. No gimmicks. No gun bunnies – only true IDF veterans. Exclusive Bonus: Every order ships FREE worldwide – no minimums, no codes. Each month presents a meticulously crafted portrait showcasing not only the individuality and strength of these remarkable women but also the spirit and ethos of the IDF. With its artistic blend of tactical aesthetics, evocative backdrops and first-class print quality, the 2026 Calendar is both a tribute and a collector’s piece. Whether displayed in your home, office or training space, this calendar offers 12 months of inspiration, empowerment and exclusivity – a celebration of courage, dedication and style.

WILD DAKOTA GIRLS

wilddakotagirls.com – $18.00

As with last year, the cover doesn’t include any armament. But the promotional videos definitely include some firearms, so that works.

THE JOY OF SHOOTING

JoyOfShooting.com – $27.99, also available in an autographed edition.

As with last year, this one is uncertain. The 2025 calendars only arrived on the site on December 7, so I am currently holding out hope that a 2026 edition will show up there in the next week or two. Below is the 2025 cover, which managed to get ahead of the curve and beat Ballerina to the punch by using a frickin’ flamethrower. 

HOT CHICKS COLD STEEL

Amazon – $14.39

  • Photography – Enjoy stunning, full-color photographs or artwork every single month
  • Durable Construction – Sturdy, high-quality paper resists curling and ink bleed-through, and durable binding ensures longevity throughout the year
  • Use Right Away – 16-month calendar is comprised of 12 full monthly pages preceded by a bonus image accompanying the last four months of the previous year
  • Large, Roomy Day Blocks – All major holidays and moon phases listed, with plenty of room for writing notes and appointments
  • Specifications – 16 months (January–December 2026) monthly two-page layouts plus a four month BONUS IMAGE including September–December 2025 mini grids; 12″ x 12″ (closed); 12″ x 24″ (opened); 28 pages

AMAZON

Finally, here are a couple I found on Amazon: I’m not certain if they are actually calendars, since the descriptions seem potentially rather more like a book. On another product, I found a customer review which said that was exactly what it was. So, buyer beware with regard to these, and I’m including them solely for the purpose of completeness, with no warranty given or implied…

Killing Mary Sue

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★½
“Death becomes her.”

Is there anything worse than a comedy which doesn’t land? I get that humour is subjective, but this action-comedy manages to be spectacularly unfunny, to a degree I have to wonder how it got made. There are some well-known people in the cast: actors who I know have talent (to the list below, you can add Martin Kove and Jake Busey), and whose work I have previously enjoyed. What did they see in the script here, which made them think, “Yes, this is something I want to do”? For this is the cinematic equivalent of nails being dragged across a chalkboard for an hour and a half. You don’t watch this, so much as endure it.  

To be fair, I think the characters being so repellent is a conscious, deliberate choice. You have sleazy politician Bradley Weiner (Mulroney), and his problematic step-daughter, Mary Sue (McCormick). She’s an utter brat, with no interest in anything except partying hard. With a key election looming, and Weiner trailing in the polls, he and his campaign adviser (Busey) decide to bump Mary Sue off, both to end her scandals, and for a sympathy bump in the polls. However, she proves remarkably hard to terminate: there is eventually an explanation for this, though it’s more of the “Wait a minute…” variety, than anything convincing. Still, Mary Sue’s survival forces her father to up the ante, and repeatedly send nastier assassins to try and finish the job. 

The first chunk of this is energetically devoted to demonstrating how terrible everyone is. The problem might be, it’s too damn successful. They never recover: for Weiner, it’s fair enough, since he is the nominal “bad guy.” But for Mary Sue, this is a problem, since you want your heroine to have some redeeming qualities. I genuinely couldn’t find any. Indeed, I was beginning to sympathize with her father, since in her position, putting her down like the mad dog she is, feels almost like responsible parenting. [Our teenage daughter wasn’t exactly a saint; yet she’s Mother freakin’ Teresa beside Mary Sue] This is all lazily blamed on daddy issues, her biological father being murdered in front of her, when he was robbing a convenience store. 

The concept of her being a real-life Mary Sue is potentially amusing, except that’s as far as it goes. Simply repeating a cliché of bad writing, doesn’t stop it from being a cliché, and writer-director Sunshine does nothing more. Have her slowly and gracelessly roll away from a hail of bullets, or mentioning video-game auto-aiming capabilities, simply isn’t enough. Especially when Mary Sue shows no sign of a character arc, and remains resolutely unlikable until her sudden, thoroughly unconvincing and revelatory change at the end. Sort of. I’m not even going to get into the lumpen and turgid whacks at unsubtle political satire: guys, the Russian are interfering in ‘Merican politics! If you find that intrinsically amusing, you know where to find this film. 

Dir: James Sunshine
Star: Sierra McCormick, Dermot Mulroney, Sean Patrick Flanery, Jason Mewes

Undercover

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★★★½
“The long game.”

It’s surprising to me that there are currently no English-language external reviews listed for this on the IMDb. It’s certainly worthy of notice outside its native Spain, where it was nominated for thirteen Goyas, the local equivalent of the Oscars, winning Best Film and Best Actress. It takes place over a number of years around the turn of the millennium, when the Spanish state was in a notorious and bloody war against ETA, a terrorist group fighting for the independence of the Basque region. Mónica (Yuste) is a cop who is recruited by Angel (Tosar) to go deep undercover, and infiltrate ETA in order to provide information on the group, its members and their plans.

This takes a very long time, the group understandably being suspicious of outsiders and extremely cautious about in whom they put their faith. We dip into the life of “Arantxa”, the new identity of Mónica, as she becomes active in the separatist movement, laying the groundwork to be seen as reliable and, more importantly, trustworthy. It takes six years before she is finally allowed entrance and given a mission of note: providing shelter for Kepa (Gastesi), an ETA member on the run. Having gained his confidence, she is then brought in to a bigger plan, bringing leader Sergio (Anido) back into Spain, and restablishing an ETA cell in San Sebastian, to attack judges, police and other targets. 

There isn’t anything particularly new here. You can probably tick off the story elements as they show up, if you’ve seen any other “undercover cop” thrillers along the same lines. It’s basically a series of narrow escapes in which Arantxa’s true identity is almost discovered. Sergio finds the phone she uses to talk to Angel, for example, or she is almost unable to return a folder after she passed it to the cops for copying. She starts to have feelings for Kepa too, while Angel faces resistance to the operation from the highers-up. Oh, and #Sexism, because it’s Spain. All fairly boilerplate stuff. However, the secret sauce is in the execution, which Echevarría does with no shortage of skill, particularly when it comes to dialling up the tension.

It is based on a true story, though to what extent it’s accurate, I can’t say. Here, not knowing the eventual outcome going in, except at the highest level (I was aware that ETA ended up disbanding) is likely a help. Because you won’t know whether or not Mónica completes her mission successfully – and, a different question, makes it out alive. I did appreciate there’s not much effort at moral grey here. Sometimes a terrorist is just a bad guy, and if you have any doubts about Sergio, his treatment of Monica’s cat will dissolve those [If they do not, we really can’t be friends!] Again, it’s not the subtlest of plotting. Yet between it and Echevarria’s skilled hand, it all undeniably gets the job done.

Dir: Arantxa Echevarría
Star: Carolina Yuste, Luis Tosar, Iñigo Gastesi, Diego Anido
a.k.a. La Infiltrada

Thicha

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★★★½
“…dig two graves, Thai style”

As a child, Oo-yi came to Thailand with her mother as a migrant worker. They had the misfortune to work for the cruel Madam Bussara (Kingpayome), who had a particularly nasty habit of pimping out young girls to her lawyer, Methi. When she tried to do the same to Oo-yi, Mom stood up for her – and was beaten to death for her pains. Oo-yi was able to escape, and raised by Ni Wai (Sirikul). Now, an adult (Luevisadpaibul), she is set on vengeance, and intent on destroying Madam Bussara’s life. To do so, she becomes Thicha, “accidentally” bumps into Bussara’s son, Phatchai (Chirathivat), and begins cultivating a relationship with him. But that’s the story of revenge: it’s messy. Since her feelings for him start becoming genuine.

On the one hand, it might seem rather soapy, and I won’t deny the melodramatic nature of things. But it is held together by a pair of great performances from Luevisadpaibul and Kingpayome. The latter, in particular, is close to an all-time villain. I’m not sure what happened to her husband, but it probably wasn’t good. Witness this monologue: “No one understands just how thrilling it is to watch a living being fight for its life. When it’s someone who always thought they were invincible, it’s even more entertaining. And if that desperate fight for survival is caused by my own hands? It’s almost as good as an orgasm.” Yeah: not somebody you want to mess with.

When her son shows up with Thicha, she knows instinctively that something is not right with his new girlfriend. From there, through the eight x 45-minute episodes, unfolds a slew of twists, revelations, nastiness and questions. Thicha is pregnant! Or is she? Phatchai discovers her deceptions! What will he do? Thicha’s informant inside Bussara’s house is exposed! How will she survive? It all builds to a rather brutal battle between Thicha and Madam, on the very spot where her mother was buried, years before. I was about to apply a demerit for Thicha having to be rescued by Phatchai there, until… Well, it doesn’t end exactly like that, this being a case where the pursuit of vengeance is not a rewarding and cathartic experience.

It is a little distancing. While Madam is a right c… not very nice person, it’s perhaps Methi who is in direst need of drastic punitive action. I feel it would have been more satisfying if he had been the bad guy from the start, rather than a peripheral villain. However, there’s a good sense of escalation, with each episode ending at a point which lures you forward into the next installment. It’s the scenes where Thicha and Bussara face off – be that verbally or (eventually) physically – where the series comes to life, and I found myself holding my breath more than once. If it does take a while to reach the final payoff, I’d be hard pushed to call it unsatisfactory.

Dir: Ekkasit Trakulkasemsuk
Star: Pimchanok Luevisadpaibul, Metinee Kingpayome, Pachara Chirathivat, Penpak Sirikul

The Last Exit

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★★★★
“Manson family values.”

Genuinely good Tubi Original shocker! Well, that’s a bit harsh: there have have been decent ones before – such as Lowlifes, which certainly has some DNA in common. But this is likely the best I’ve yet seen, anchored by an excellent performance from Richardson. This takes place on a dark and stormy night, in a remote Scottish farmhouse. Rose (Richardson) is taking care of her disabled husband, with the help of daughter Maisy (Soverall), where there’s a frantic knocking at the door. It’s two men, Matty (Cadby) and his badly injured brother, Jack (Linpow). Their car got into a wreck nearby, and they are in desperate need of help. Naturally, they aren’t innocent passers-by. 

No great surprise there, and it turns out they are fleeing from a robbery, with the intention of getting across the North Sea to Norway. However, there was a third member of the gang, who didn’t survive. He’s the son of the man who planned the heist: for obvious reasons is not happy about the situation, and ends up heading for the farm. However, that is not the biggest problem Matty and Jack face. For it turns out they aren’t the only ones keeping secrets, and they have just chosen the wrongest possible home to invade. Told you it was not dissimilar to Lowlifes.  The question of who are the villains here becomes a good deal less clear, the more we know about everyone involved.

To that end, much credit to the script, also written by Linpow in an impressive feature debut. It reveals the necessary information at the right pace, and just when you think you know what’s going on, it’ll throw another twist at you. Loyalties shift from scene to scene as the characters discover more about each other, or themselves, and the situation becomes inextricably messy. You know it’s going to end in messy violence, and the film certainly doesn’t disappoint there. The cast are all solid – though in the credits, I notice the production had a “sensitivity consultant”, which is apparently a thing now. I’d like to offer my services as a crass insensitivity consultant to any movies interested. My qualifications there speak for themselves.

Where was I? Oh, yeah. It is, however, Richardson’s movie, having the toughest arc to handle as she moves from caring and compassionate mother to… Well, I guess technically she is still a caring and compassionate mother. It’s just that, well… /gestures vaguely at the screen. The film opens and closes with meaningful quotes about motherhood and the emotions it can trigger. Although what transpires between them, makes them read in radically different ways. To that end, I was getting notes of French horror flick Inside, another story of maternal instincts gone horribly wrong, or Matriarch, also set in Scotland with visitors getting more than they bargained for. Yet despite the influences, this is its own creature, powered by Richardson, and is a solid thriller to the very last shot.

Dir: Matthias Hoene
Star: Joely Richardson, Neil Linpow, Sadie Soverall, Harry Cadby
a.k.a. Little Bone Lodge
[A version of this review originally appeared on Film Blitz]

The Phantom Warrior

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★½
“That’s the thing about revenge. It’s messy.”

And, unfortunately, in this case, it’s not messy in a good or even interesting way. It’s messy in a “What the heck is going on?” way, with a large side-order of, “Can somebody please explain this to me?”, and a garnish of “Anyone? Hello?”. To say this film poses more questions than answers would be incorrect. Because that would wrongly imply it offers any answers at all. I’m just glad the version I saw ran a mere 84 minutes, because the IMDb cites a running time more than half an hour longer. Maybe the thirty-five minutes removed for this cut were all of the explanation. Though I suggest it’d be improved by removing about the same again.

From what I could figure out, it’s about a vigilante with the faintly ludicrous name of Nemesis Knight, played by Bartlett who is sporting an even more flaky rural American accent. She seems to make a pact with the devil (Berkoff), which gives her certain abilities. However, this also puts her on the radar of a support group of like-minded individuals, who want her to join them, and the local sheriff (Cain), following the trail of dead bodies left in Nemesis’s wake. There’s also a guy called Dollos (Rowen), with a harem of both sexes, and a vested interest in proceedings, because… Well, like so much else here, it’s unclear, which makes it difficult to give a damn.

This is a first, but I mist give credit to casting director Helen Stafford, for pulling in a top tier cast of B-movie names. In addition to Cain and Berkoff, there is also Marina Sirtia, Vas Blackwood and a bloke off the British version of Gladiators. Most of whom are featured higher up the IMDb page than their role in the film would demand, though that’s par for the course in the low-budget realm. It’s basically the script, also by director Michael, which is easily the biggest problem here. I knew we were probably in trouble, when we don’t get any dialogue at the start, just a leaden lump of voice-over from Ms. Knight. This is always a red flag, and in this case, proved an accurate warning of story problems to come. 

Basically, it’s almost impossible to care. It’s clear that the heroine is taking out bad people, but these are drawn in such a facile way, the resulting revenge has no impact at all. It builds to an invasion by the vigilante group of what seems to be a gangster dinner party, where everybody is doing their best Goodfellas impressions. These are about as good as my Goodfellas impression. You’re left to ponder why the whole production is set in a poorly-rendered simulation of the United States, adding unnecessary complexity e.g. finding cars with left-hand drive, to a production which doesn’t have the resources for it. A couple of bits of half-decent imagery – Bartlett looks okay, providing she keeps her mouth shut – are far from sufficient.

Dir: Savvas D. Michael
Star: Nicole Bartlett, Elijah Rowen, Dean Cain, Stephen Berkoff

Calixta: The Vanquishers of Alhambra, by Omayra Vélez

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Literary rating: ★★★
Kick-butt quotient: ☆☆

Subtitled “A grimdark fantasy,” if you are expecting this to be packed full of sex and violence, as a result… Well, you might be a little disappointed. While the lead character, Calixta Harlow Carlyle, is an “Exotic” – a highly-trained prostitute – she doesn’t seem to do all that much… um, prostiuting. We’re about half-way through before she goes to bed with anyone. The violence isn’t particularly brutal or copious either. It is, I guess, somewhat dark, and certainly not a young adult book. But anyone who watched (or read) Game of Thrones will not exactly require the services of a fainting couch to get through this.

Calixta ends up dying, trying to protect one of the girls in the brothel she runs. However, that’s just the start, because the powers that be in the afterlife inform our heroine she’s actually a Vanqusher. These are people with magical talents who act as guardians against the forces of evil, currently massing as they prepare to take over the world. Vanquishers are supposed to have guides from birth, who train them. But Calixta never had that benefit, instead being sold into slavery and trained as an Exotic. She’s sent back to life – much to the shock of her employees – and told to find the other three Vanquishers. But the evil Jadro wants to ensure Calixtra dies permanently, before she can come into her true abilities, and stand against him.

She’s forced into going on the run, with three friends who are even less suited to survival. This involves an escape through the sewers which is about the nastiest sequence in the book (straying uncomfortably close to fetish for my tastes), although they are then rescued by Dreyden, another Vanquisher. Together, they go on a quest to awaken another of their kind, Calixta learning how to control the battle-mage skills she has been given, which allow her to summon and manipulate the element of fire, both offensively and for protection. This talent is very much a work in progress, hence the lower score for action – Dreyden likely does more of the heavy lifting in that department. I suspect she may improve in future installments.

There are several points where the writing does come off as somewhat clunky, and points at which it feels like characters are saying things which are more needed for the plot than anything else. It did also feel that things were unfolding at a leisurely pace: this is approaching four hundred page long, and by the end, we’re not particularly far on from where we were. There’s a lot of travel. However, it is an interesting pantheon, with virtues like Justice, Wisdom and Hope taking human form under a deity they call “Father”. It has occasional moments of genuine emotion too, such as in regard to Calixta’s unborn child, which proved surprisingly poignant. I suspect it’ll end up being fairly straightforward good vs. evil, and there’s nothing wrong with that.

Author: Omayra Vélez
Publisher: Self-published, available through Amazon, both as a paperback and an e-book
Book 1 of 4 in the Vanquishers of Alhambra series.

Playground

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★★★
“Further education.”

I’m a little surprised I hadn’t heard of this, considering it is based on a concept by Luc Besson. What we have here, though, is a feature-length version of what was originally a ten-episode web series. I presume it was intended for distribution on something like Quibi (remember that?), but I’ve not been able to find out where it previously appeared, if anywhere. Anyway, it recently popped up on Tubi, looking like a “proper” film, though still with the chapter headings. While touted as “an original idea” by Luc Besson, let’s be honest: if you chucked Nikita, Leon and Hanna into a blender, the resulting violence smoothie might well end up tasting not dissimilar to this.

Amy Seely (Holm) is a teen orphan in New York (though the series was made in France), whose father murdered her mother, then killed himself, and is not having a good time in the foster system. She is more than happy to take the route out offered to her by Father (Abkarian), even though that means attending The Courtyard, a school for teenage assassins. There, life is certainly cheap, with the mysterious powers that be who run it, taking advantage of the fact that nobody basically suspects children of being killers. However, Amy becomes privy to disturbing information, which suggests that the Courtyard might have been involved in her parents’ deaths, and begins to rebel against her own conditioning. Not helping matters: the facility is attacked, and the order comes from above to shut it all down.

After an impressive opening, where Amy ambushes a group of four thugs, by pretending to be the target’s daughter, this is… merely alright. It feels a bit too “young adult’ for my tastes, and spends an excessive amount of time within the Courtyard, dealing with what I am inclined to describe as Teen Soap-Opera Bullshit. For example, there’s a bitchy girl who takes an instant dislike to Amy, a cute boy that she kinda likes, and so on. Therefore, when her first mission goes awry because somebody sabotaged her gun, it leads to an additional helping of unnecessary TS-OB. I’d have preferred to see more of them operating in the real world, and suspect the webisode budget acted as a constraint there.

The structure is also a little odd as a result, because rather than building to an obvious climax, you have ten mini-climaxes, corresponding to the end of each episode. In some ways, this pacing has more in common with a golden era serial. I was quite impressed with Holm, who has potential, although it was a little odd having her first mission involving a paedophile, considering Besson’s own… um, very “European” history in the area of teenage attraction. It’s also eye-rollingly fortuitous how that mission provides her with the first evidence that the Courtyard may not be as beneficent as they claim. Still, it’s probably no worse than anything Besson has done in the past decade. 

Dir: Olivier Schneider and Pascal Sid
Star: Amalia Holm, Simon Abkarian, Melina Matthews, Ann Skelly

Inheritance

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★★★
“The family that spies together, lies together.”

Or, um, something, I guess. Maya (Dynevor) is at her mother’s funeral, when she gets a surprise, in the appearance of her long estranged father, Sam (Ifans). He wants to reconnect with her, and to this end, offers her a job with his real-estate company in Cairo. Despite qualms, Maya accepts, but not long after her arrival, Sam is kidnapped. To obtain his release, the kidnappers order her to recover a package and deliver it to them. Things turn out to be more complex than that, naturally, and the resulting trail takes Maya first to India, then on to South Korea, with various parties keenly interested in the outcome. She discovers the murky truth about her father’s business activities too.

While that likely won’t surprise anyone who has seen this kind of film, it does a good job of capturing the escalating sense of paranoia felt by the heroine. What is going on? Is her father a good guy or not? Who can she trust? [For the last, it’s unsurprising, and not really a spoiler, if you go with “nobody at all” there] The whole film was shot on an iPhone which is kinda impressive, because it looks surprisingly decent. It does add a hand-held immediacy to proceedings, and this helps in some sequences, such as when she is being pursued through the streets of Mumbai. Or is it Delhi? I’ll admit, it hard to keep track sometimes.

On the other hand, I tend to feel this should only be one trick in the cinematic locker, and because it’s used for the entirety here, its impact does tend to diminish. Fortunately, it’s considerably more stable than I expected, so I presume this wasn’t just the director waving it around by hand. Dynevor has to carry the film with her performance, and I did like the character arc. Maya starts off as a fairly nondescript party girl, who basically flings herself into hedonistic excess after the death of her mother, for whom she had been sole carer of late. But by the end, she has become hard-bitten and cynical, deception now coming as easily as breathing to her.

In its hand-held energy and globe-trotting shenanigans, it feels like it might inhabit a small, extremely cheap corner of the Bourne universe. However, I would definitely not expect any significant action set-pieces commensurate with that. While Maya does qualify here – she’s absolutely left to sink or swim based on her own abilities to escape perilous situations – it’s her instinctual smarts which are key to survival. You may be able to see where this will end up. In particular, there was one line which was absolutely an “Ah-hah!” moment for me in this regard. I wouldn’t say that destroys the film, since this is one where the journey is more interesting than the destination. This iPhone technique isn’t somewhere I’d like to live, yet it was an interesting place to visit. 

Dir: Neil Burger
Star: Phoebe Dynevor, Rhys Ifans, Necar Zadegan, Kersti Bryan

Steal Her Breath

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★★½
“Don’t hold your breath.”

I wonder if this film was made as some kind of bet. How many tropes and clichés can you fit into a single movie? It would make for a fun drinking game, though not one I would recommend, unless you have first checked the fine print on your health insurance. It focuses on two characters, though both of them are more like walking collections of issues. There’s a thief, Laura Nehls (Binger), who is seeking to liberate the NOX list, which is about to be sold on the black market. It contains “The true identities of hundreds of investigators, informants, and undercover agents.” Needless to say, the authorities are keen on this not falling into the wrong hands. 

Seeking to stop it is police detective Maxine Kämmerer (Lopes), a single mom whom we first see trying (and failing) to get some quality alone time in her shower, if you know what I mean. On her side is somewhat useless colleague Joachim (Hauber), of whom Maxine says, “Nobody likes you and nobody takes you seriously, because you’re a coward, corrupt, a grumbler, and a disgusting asshole.” These are the good guys, folks. The film isn’t really selling them. Mind you, just about every other man in this film is a bully or worse, up to the psychotic Laschla (Möller), one of the buyers of the file, whose hobbies include stringing women up and gutting them. 

An exception might be Laura’s uncle Dirk, though he seems to have some kind of terminal disease. Cancer. It’s probably cancer. So he’ll be abandoning her soon too. You won’t be surprised to discover that Laura and Maxine meet up, have instant sexual chemistry and decide to work with each other (more or less) to recover the NOX files. This happens after an surprisingly lengthy and surprisingly graphic spot of lesbian canoodling, finding in each other’s arms what they are unable to get from the male sex. There might have been a point where I would have appreciated this unexpected treat. But in this case, I was largely making “hurry up” gestures toward the screen. Though you won’t be surprised to discover that the sides disagree in terms of their commitment to the new relationship. 

From reading local reviews, the most memorable thing here seems to be the use of local Swabian and Saxon dialect. Needless to say, that’s an element which entirely escaped me, and there wasn’t much to keep me interested otherwise. Things unfold almost as you’d expect and, while both Maxine and Laura are characters with potential, the fact that chief antagonist Laschla looks to have strayed in from a bit of Euroschlock, Possibly involving gay vampires. It all unfolds in a plodding and predictable fashion, though it’s nicely photographed, and the leads stop it from collapsing entirely under its own weight. If you have a burning desire to see a German version of Bound, I guess this will satisfy the urge. 

Dir: Andreas Kröneck
Star: Luisa Binger, Christina Lopes, Harald Hauber, Oliver Möller