★★★½
“Everybody has issues.”
I’d be the first to admit, those issues likely extend beyond the characters in the movie, and probably extend to the script writers, because there are certainly… well, let’s just say, some novel concepts here. The heroine is Nina Nowak (Grochowska), a former Special Ops soldier, who had to fake her own death and give her son Maks up to adoption, for both their security. She’s been keeping an eye on Maks (Delikta) from afar, but after he’s abducted at the request of a gangster Nina took down, she needs to become considerably more hands-on. Rescuing Maks, however, will bring her into contact with a number of rather odd people, on both sides of the law.
In particular, there’s Igor (Delikta), her contact inside the establishment, who is divorced, and has a fragile relationship with his daughter that he desperately wants to repair. On the other side is the very strange Woltomierz (Wróblewski), a gangster who keeps the severed head of his father in a jar on his mantelpiece, and is known as “Volto” for his habit of tazing incompetent henchmen to death. Getting, and keeping, Maks out of his grasp is going to be a challenge for Nina. Although her bad-ass credentials are firmly established after she takes on a group of men outside a convenience store, armed with nothing more lethal than a six-pack of beer. Nina literally knocks one of them out of his shoes.
This is not to be confused with any of the other similarly titled films, not least the 2010 movie starring Rebecca de Mornay. Nor should it be confused with another recently released Netflix movie about a mother with special skills, looking for her abducted child, The Mother, starring Jennifer Lopez. With that said, the look and feel of this is impressive, the fight scenes in particular being well-staged and imaginative – though fair warning, do not expect realism. or anything approaching it. I’m unaware of Grochowska having any particular action background, yet she still delivers on that front. Most notably, she stabs someone in the head with a pair of carrots: I’ve not seen that since the equally bonkers Clive Owen movie, Shoot ‘Em Up.
The whole film is lit in a sickly green palette, which does a great job of making the city in which it takes place, look like a terrible place to live. Less successful are the attempts at drama. The Nina/Maks relationship is flat and unconvincing, and the rest of the cast largely seem to be weird for weirdness’s sake. They’re not as interesting as the makers think they are. The best way to look at this is perhaps as a female-fronted version of Crank: a deliberately excessive action flick, clearly not intended to be taken seriously. As such, I think it is a better effort than Jolt, another Netflix movie which seemed to be aiming along similar lines. The ending hints at a sequel and, truth be told, I wouldn’t mind one.
Dir: Mateusz Rakowicz
Star: Agnieszka Grochowska, Adrian Delikta, Dariusz Chojnacki, Szymon Wróblewski