Tag: 2019

Soeurs D’Armes

  By

★★½
“Army dreamers.”

This suffers from being almost exactly the same story as the previous feature we reviewed about women Kurdish fighters going up against ISIS, Les Filles Du Soleil. Both focus on a woman who is kidnapped by ISIS after they sweep through her town, and gets sold into slavery by her captors. She escapes, and joins of the all-female units who are battling the jihadist occupation. Bur there is a family member – in Filles, the heroine’s son; here, her younger brother – who is still with ISIS and has become a child soldier for them. Even if you haven’t seen the earlier film, you’ll not be surprised to hear this plays a key role in the film’s climax. The similarities are so startling, I kept expecting to hear this was a remake. It just appears to be a carbon-copy.

There are some differences, the most notable feature being the multinational nature of the women’s group here. As well as local Yezidi Zara (Gwyn), there are two young Frenchwomen, Kenza (Garrel) and Yaël (Jordana), an American sniper (Nanna Blondell, who was in Black Widow), etc. The ISIS are similar: the chief “bad guy” is English, with a strong Northern accent – though I’ve been unable to take English jihadists seriously, ever since watching Four Lions. It’s no easy task for the women’s commander (Casar) to mesh all these different upbringings, experiences and personalities into a cohesive unit.

And extending the similarity to Filles, the film has the same main weakness, and ends up spreading itself too thinly across the multiple stories it wants to tell. None of them manage to acquire the necessary depth, and most of which are more or less obvious. Not helping, the film has an unfortunate tendency to sink into drippy feminism. The montage sequence of the women training, accompanied by a pseudo-empowering “I am woman, hear me roar”-type song, marked a particular low point. More successful in general is the technically impressive action. The film’s best sequence depicts a battle between the women and a platoon of ISIS troops who are chasing a group of fleeing refugees, which includes Zara. It’s beautifully shot and well-staged, with a genuine sense of tension.

Yet, there are other, almost embarrassingly naive moments, such as the women entering a town their side has just bombed, and standing in the middle of the street for a chat, without checking the area has been cleared. I’m not a soldier, but even I know that’s… not wise. Such gaffes aside, it’s mainly the hackneyed and trite storyline that stops this from achieving any real degree of success. There is certainly a fascinating story to be told in the Kurdish women’s battalions and their part in the war against ISIS.  But that’s now two efforts which appear to have barely scratched the surface, or gone beyond the obvious. Particularly here, they seem more interested in political, religious and gender-based point-scoring than telling a good story.

Dir: Caroline Fourest
Star: Dilan Gwyn, Amira Casar, Camélia Jordana, Esther Garrel

Ravage

  By

★★½
“Harper’s bizarre.”

Wildlife photographer Harper Sykes (Dexter-Jones) is out in the wilderness of the “Watchatoomy Valley” [fictitious, but apparently located somewhere in the Virginias], when she stumbles across a group of men brutally attacking a victim. She snaps a few pics before fleeing the scene, but her attempts to report the incident to the authorities backfire immediately, and she quickly finds herself at the mercy of their leader, the appropriately-named Ravener (Longstreet). He explains the victim was a scout for big business, whose predations would destroy the natural environment, and so had to be stopped. Now, Harper is next in line. However, she is not the innocent and helpless victim they think. Even when she has the chance to escape, Harper decides to stay in the valley, and take vengeance on Ravener and the rest of his clan.

It is an interesting idea. Frequently in the horror genre, the character arc is of the “final girl”, who only resorts to violence when finally pushed too far. That certainly isn’t the case here: indeed, Harper actually fires first, gunning down one of Ravener’s henchmen as soon as she steps from her truck. Yet there’s a reason the trope of the final girl exists, because it pulls the audience along with her. Here, Harper’s actions are unexpected enough they could well disengage much of the audience, coming as they do before we’ve established much sympathy for her. Another problem is her decision to stay and actively look for her revenge isn’t well-enough defined: I was left wondering for quite some time, why she didn’t leave. Some explanation of why she’s so skilled might have been nice: not much, just a quick reference to time in the military, or a survivalist Dad, would have been fine.

The structure is also a tad problematic, with the film being told in flashback, a heavily-bandaged Harper recounting her story to a disbelieving state trooper from her hospital bed. So, we know she will survive, and the early explanations also remove much other tension from subsequent proceedings. If you’ve seen more than, roughly, two of this kind of movie, you’ll also fail to be surprised that the kindly individual to whom the heroine turns for help, ends up being anything but. I could perhaps have done without the lengthy digression into medieval torture techniques and bovine anatomy. Though both do prove at least tangentially necessary to the plot, and the latter in particular, leads to a grisly payoff.

Dexter-Jones does a good job of selling her role, and Harper generally has no compunction about acting, e.g. blowing one of her target’s brains out at point-blank range. Yet, this is at odds with some of her other actions. She literally throws up after watching the initial savagery, and the sight of a dead body later makes her shriek like a little girl. It’s all maddeningly inconsistent, and left me rather annoyed, with too much the potential here wasted through sloppy execution.

Dir: Teddy Grennan
Star: Annabelle Dexter-Jones, Robert Longstreet, Michael Weaver, Bruce Dern
a.k.a. Swing Low

The Huntress: Rune of the Dead

  By

★★
“Can’t see the wood for the trees. SO. Many. Trees…”

In 9th-century Scandinavia, teenage girl Runa (Stefansdotter) lives deep in the woods, with her mother, Magnhild (Idah), blind grandfather Ragnvald (Beck) and younger sister Bothild (Lyngbrant). Father Joar is notable by his absence, having gone off on a Viking raid to seek fortune for the family, and is now well overdue. However, he did at least train Runa to be a markswoman with the bow. Problems start when she finds a wounded warrior, Torulf, lying in the forest, and brings him back to their cabin, much against Magnhild’s wishes.

Torulf turns out to be a colleague of Joar’s, who tells a tale of the raiders looting a burial site – only to find vengeance coming out of the grave after them. He and Joar are the only two survivors. And when Joar returns shortly afterward, his arrival puts the whole group in peril, because of what’s inexorably following him. It’s only really at this point – two-thirds of the way in – that the film remotely begins to entertain. Up until this point, there has been a lot of sitting around the woods, and the director appears never to have heard of the maxim “Show, don’t tell.” Witness Torulf’s lengthy and frankly, boring, description of the situation, which would fit better into a Nordic saga recital than any cinematic retelling.

If the makers had gone for a siege type of film from the beginning, with the family barricaded in their cabin, and trying to fend off an unstoppable horde of barrow wights, this might have worked. It’s what I was expecting going in, and what I was waiting to see. And waiting. And waiting, while slow-moving coming of age family drama unfolded instead. I actually liked Stefansdotter in the lead role. Indeed, most of the performances are solid enough, and the same goes for the technical aspects. There was clearly some effort put in – the score, for example, is nicely done – and the forest provides a lushly appropriate backdrop against which any number of entertaining things might have unfolded. In a different, more interesting movie, anyway.

We finally do get the hand-to-hand (and hand-to-bow) battles for which we have been waiting. But only after a point by which the end credits would already be rolling on better-paced features. Even there, it is a bit on the dark side – though after my issues with Immortal Wars, the bar of what qualifies as “a bit on the dark side” has been raised considerably. This is nowhere near as bad, and you still can tell what’s going on, with a bit of peering. There’s a rough energy here which works, although the main impact is to make you wonder where the hell it has been for the rest of the movie. The makers should have sat down to watch the not-dissimilar Flukt, and built on what worked there, such as its steady flow of tension, instead of offering us 90 minutes of meandering around the woods.

Dir: Rasmus Tirzitis
Star: Moa Enqvist Stefansdotter, Yohanna Idha, Viva Östervall Lyngbrant, Ralf Beck

Stalked

  By

★★
“Lacking in military intelligence”

A promising idea has its concept snuffed out by shaky execution and even worse writing. Sam (Rogers) is a former solder and now single mother. When her child falls sick, Sam heads for the chemist’s for medicine. She never gets there, being abducted in a van and rendered unconscious. She wakes in a large warehouse-like facility in the middle of nowhere, which turns out to be a military production facility. She’s not the only woman there, and finds that an invisible adversary, using advanced tech to cloak his presence, is taking advantage of the weekend to turn the place into a stalker’s amusement park. However, Sam’s background perhaps gives her a very particular set of skills, unavailable to the other victims.

I’m generally fairly oblivious to script-holes: Chris is considerably better at spotting them. But here, even I could see the glaring flaws. This is supposedly a cutting-edge military facility, yet the security is so bad, a child can literally get in. The motivation for the villain is poorly drawn, and it’s never explained how the lowly caretaker – for that’s what he is – manages to get to use all of his wonderful toys. Do the army also let soldiers take tanks off to drive around on the weekend? But it’s not as if the film has any confidence in him as a bad guy, for even after Sam has managed to avoid his threat, she then has to handle a military drone. Just one – for like I say, security is pretty bad. And it can easily be taken out with a conveniently to hand brick. If we ever go to war, I swear, we are screwed…

If the film had made much of Sam’s background, supposedly in the engineers’ corps, that might have helped. Watching her MacGyver her way against her opponent, using the plentiful material at hand could have been fun. But that would have required thought, something largely absent from the script. There are few points at which we are ever convinced of her military background, and the scenes where she is “fighting” her invisible opponent, all too often reminded me of the Monty Python sketch about self-wrestling. It’s a shame, as Rogers is by no means terrible otherwise, and is quite empathetic.

The same cannot be said for the ending, however. It’s understandable that the writer-director felt the need to tack something on, after the considerably underwhelming confrontation with the drone. What he delivers is the ultra-cliched finale where someone isn’t who they seem to be, but turns out to be the killer. No, those are not a pair of fidget spinners, they are my eyes rolling at this “twist”. At least he has the good grace not to stretch this out, bringing things to a ending that is brisk to the extreme. It’s clear the budget on this was limited, and I forgive it that. The lazy plotting is considerably harder to forgive.

Dir: Justin Edgar
Star: Rebecca Rogers, Nathalie Buscombe, Ian Sharp, Laurence Saunders

Hellcat’s Revenge II: Deadman’s Hand

  By

★★★
“Hello Catty!”

We reviewed Hellcat’s Revenge last year, and I’m pleased to report this is a small but palpable improvement from Kabasinski. Most of the players from its predecessor return, notably biker queen Cat (Neeld), who quickly finds herself framed and locked up in prison. There’s a target on Cat’s back, courtesy of rival gang leader, Rosie (Hamblin), who has formed an unholy alliance with the warden, and slips easily in and out of jail to manage her business, through a basement tunnel. She has driven both Cat’s gang, the Hellcats, and that of her lover, Snake (Kabasinski) off the streets, with the latter supposedly killed. That’s not the case – cue “I thought you were dead” comments to Snake, which I feel have to be an Escape From New York homage – and we soon learn, down is not out. For the tunnel out of jail goes both ways, and can also be Cat’s escape route, allowing her and Snake to take on Rosie and her crew.

It’s nice this largely addressed the issues I had with the first one. For instance, the lack of motorcycles isn’t a problem here, since this time round, it’s more a women-in-prison film – not many bikes in the slammer. And when pursuing the WiP path, it’s a good slice of fun, even if not much more than the usual tropes from the genre e.g. evil warden, sadistic guards, laundry-room brawls, etc. I particularly liked the turn of Dutch (who was in part one, playing a different character) as long-term inmate Vegas. Also: approaching seventy, if the IMDb is to be believed, and still doing a shower scene? Mad props. Hamblin, too, simply looks like a scary prison inmate, all piercings and face tattoos. In a film like this, that’s half the battle, and there’s no shortage of the requisite attitude and jailbird posturing to be found across the female characters.

The film is less impressive on the outside, not least because in the middle, Cat ends up becoming a supporting character in her own film, with Snake taking over. This isn’t as much fun, coming off as more like a low-rent episode of a Sons of Anarchy wannabe [and I speak as a fan of that show], with Snake carving a lone furrow there. I couldn’t help wishing they’d just stuck within the closed confines of those prison walls, where things appeared to be moving along quite nicely, thank you for asking. Things do perk up again once Cat is busted out of jail, and we get the expected face-off between Cat, Snake and their allies against Rosie and her minions. As in the first film, the limited resources do limit the scope of the action, though there’s a “bullet through the head” effect which was a good effort. It’s all slightly more polished this time, and that progression is what you want to see from any low-budget film-maker. Here’s to the next film being Cat III… :)

Dir: Len Kabasinski
Star: Lisa Neeld, Donna Hamblin, Deborah Dutch, Len Kabasinski

Saand Ki Aankh

  By

★★★
“Grannies with guns”

It’s interesting to compare this with the recently reviewed Ride Like a Girl. Both are sports movies based on real events, and neither really do much story-wise, except trot out the standard tropes for the genre about overcoming obstacles on the way to triumph. Yet this succeeds somewhat better, likely because of the unusual central concept. Two Indian grandmothers, unable even to read, take up competitive shooting in their sixties, and end up becoming national heroines as a result. Tell me you’re not intrigued by that.

Chandro and Prakashi Tomar (Pednekar and Pannu) are part of a large extended family in Uttar Pradash. In this world, women do much of the work, while the men lounge around. If the film is to be believed, smoking hookah pipes and demanding snacks are their main occupations, viewing the woman as machines for pumping out babies. But things change when a local doctor (Singh) opens a shooting range. One of their grand-daughters goes along for a lesson, and the grannies – who initially attend for moral support – discover a natural talent for the sport. However, the family’s patriarch, Rattan Singh Tomar (Jha), would never permit them to travel to competitions, so deception needs to be carried out. But as the contests get bigger, so do the lies.

While the story does span several decades, it concentrates mostly on the characters in their later years, which makes it a little odd that the producers cast a pair of thirty-something actresses for the lead roles. Presumably the idea was that it was easier to make them up to be older, rather than making sixty-five year olds look thirty. I can’t say it always works. Indeed, there are points where they look closer to the Beatdown Biddies from GLOW than genuine senior citizens. At 146 minutes, it goes on too long as well. The makers could have significantly reined in the montage sequences, and the likely inevitable musical numbers add nothing to proceedings either, at least to this Westerner’s eyes. [I will admit, I’m not the intended audience there]

Despite this, is still manages to work, and the running time isn’t as much of a problem as I feared it would be when I started. It is one heck of an eye-opener to see what life in rural India is like, especially for women, and quite puts all our #FirstWorldProblems in perspective.  There’s a calm dignity about the two heroines which is effective, and it’s easy to see how that temperament transfers to their sport, even in the face of initial heckling by unconvinced audience members and opponents. It’s also about the first GWG film I’ve seen which looks at the purely sporting aspects of firearms – one of the few fields in which men and women can compete on an equal footing. The Indian title translates as “Bull’s-eye”; while I’d not claim the film scores to that degree, it hits its targets at least as often as it misses.

Dir: Tushar Hiranandani
Star: Taapsee Pannu, Bhumi Pednekar, Prakash Jha, Vineet Kumar Singh

The Legend of Tomiris

  By

★★★
“Steppes up.”

Not quite the first film from Kazakhstan I’ve ever seen. That would be Diamond Cartel, though hard to think of a film more different from this sweeping historical epic. It tells the story of Tomiris (Tursyn), the princess of a tribe living on the Scythian plains to the East of the Caspian Sea, in the sixth century BC. She was orphaned as a young child, after her father was betrayed, and had to flee into exile. But she never forgot her origins, and as an adult, returned to claim her inheritance and take vengeance on the traitors. However a bigger threat loomed in the shape of Persian emperor Cyrus, who was casting envious eyes at the territory of Tomiris and the other tribes. After further treachery, she rallies the population under her banner, and prepares for an all or nothing battle against Cyrus’s numerically superior forces.

It looks very nice. The cinematography is excellent, and there’s no arguing that the landscapes in question are perfect for this kind of thing. Though it feels as if the film-makers fell in love with the scenery more than the characters. It seems that half the running time involves shots of characters moving from Place A to Place B, and considering the film is 156 minutes long, that’s a lot of galloping back and forth. There are even some (CGI, presumably) high-altitude aerial shots, which reduce the players to literal specks on the ground, and this is indicative of the approach being taken here.

I’d have rather seen a more personal portrait of Tomiris, and her relationships with husband Argun (Akhmetov) or best friend and fellow warrioress, Sardana (Lighg). For the movie is best at provoking emotions in the viewer, when the characters are experiencing them. Perhaps the best example is when word of Cyrus’s betrayal reached Tomiris; she knows the truth, yet suppresses herself and lets his ambassador dig his own grave with his lies. [Sidenote: as I waited for the inevitable “This is SPARTA!” moment, for a while, I was wondering why Cyrus looked and behaved so differently from his portrayal in 300. Turns out that was a different Persian emperor, Xerxes, from about fifty years later. Not that I’d take 300 exactly as gospel!] The intensity of her feelings internally is obvious, and more of this passion would have been welcome.

The version of history told here is mostly based on the writings of Herodotus. He may or may not be the most reliable source; as Chris pointed out, political spin was apparently being applied to events, even in those days. But his version is likely more entertaining than other accounts, in which Cyrus died in his sleep. While I’m sure events from 2,500+ years ago fall outside the statute of limitations for spoilers, let’s just say, that doesn’t quite happen here. Though I was a little disappointed in the “hands-off” approach, historical accuracy be damned; Tomiris largely sits back and watches her troops go into battle. The action scenes are well-staged though, and help enliven a film which does occasionally need a shot of adrenaline.

For I definitely found myself checking my watch, and it’s a case where this would be a better 100-minute movie than a 156-minute one. The finer details of negotiations between the tribes really didn’t add much; on the other hand, the “warrior woman” culture of the Massagetae feels almost glossed over. Though it’s being taken as routine, rather than depicted as some kind of aberration, was a pleasant surprise. Tursyn, appearing in her first film, manages to overcome her lack of screen experience well, and without her, this could potentially have ended up being little more than a lengthy promo video for Central Asian tourism. While definitely worth a watch – not least as a more down-to-earth contrast to Mulan – I wouldn’t say it was worth a rewatch.

Dir: Akan Satayev
Star: Almira Tursyn, Adil Akhmetov, Erkebulan Dairov, Aizhan Lighg
a.k.a. Tomiris

Warrior Queen of Jhansi

  By

★★½
“Talks rather than walks.”

This version of the story of Rani Laxmibai, Queen of Jhansi, falls unfortunately between two stools. As a result, it seems likely to leave no-one satisfied, so its critical (3.5 on IMDb, 24% on Rotten Tomatoes) and commercial (less than $180K in North America) failure doesn’t come as much of a surprise. Western audiences were perhaps put off by the stereotypical portrayal of the colonialists – matters may not have been helped by a surprising, and I’d say quite harsh, R-rating. But, conversely, Indian audiences may well have been unimpressed by the Westernization of their beloved historical heroine. Most obviously – apart from the star being born in Manhattan – would be the hinted-at relationship between the Jhansi and good Briton, Major Robert Ellis (Lamb). This element seems to have been taken from Rani, a book by London-based author Jaishree Misra, whose publication triggered protests in her native land in 2008.

I can see both points. On multiple occasions, as the evil Brits of the East India Company did something else unpleasant, I leaned across to Chris to whisper, “I can only apologize.” Now, this would be tolerable in an adaptation aimed at a local audience e.g. Jhansi ki Rani. But if you’re aiming for an international audience, you need rather less of a sledgehammer approach. And while Ellis’s presence does balance things out a bit, this isn’t a story which needs any kind of romantic angle. Laxmibai is often considered as being India’s Joan of Arc; this feels a bit as if a movie decided to give Joan a boyfriend.

The rest of the film is not inaccurate, and hits the main points of her life. Her husband dies, the East India Company try to take over, and Laxmibai ends up being one leader of a rebellion against the British. Though here, the focus on her is diluted in a couple of ways. We have, as noted, the evil Brits seeking to dethrone her, led by Sir Hugh Rose (Everett). But there’s also a number of superfluous scenes, back at Balmoral Castle, in which Queen Victoria (Jodhi May) argues with Prime Minister Palmerston (Derek Jacobi). I’m guessing it’s trying to draw a parallel between the female rulers; beyond that, there really doesn’t seem much point to them.

I’d prefer to have seen more of Laxmibai becoming the warrior queen. She seems to spring, almost fully-formed, slicing and dicing the British forces, as they storm the fortified city of Jhansi. That, and a later scene where she wields a metal whip to great effect, are effective enough, and the production values are generally fine. But it’s altogether talky, on too many occasions preferring to tell the audience, instead of showing them. It fails to demonstrate quite why she was capable of becoming such a leader, with only occasional flashes showing the charisma, intelligence and diplomatic skills the real Laxmibai appears to have possessed. I appreciate the intent here; it’s a shame so much appears to have been lost in the execution.

Dir: Swati Bhise
Star: Devika Bhise, Ben Lamb, Rupert Everett, Nathaniel Parker

The Final Level: Escaping Rancala

  By

★★★
“Game girls.”

Make no mistake, this is a cheap and unashamed knockoff of Jumanji, made by the company who specializes in these mockbusters, The Asylum. It’s not their first such venture into the action heroine genre. If you remember my evisceration of Tomb Invader, you’ll understand why I approached this more out of a sense of obligation than any genuine interest. And, yet… While severely lacking in large-scale style, it was able to stand against its inspiration unexpectedly well in some other areas. Considering my extremely modest expectations when I turned this on, that has to be regarded as a win.

Back in 2012, Jake (Root) vanished out of a shopping-mall video arcade. His sister, Sarah (Chancellor), has felt guilty ever since about leaving him alone there, but is now getting ready to open an arcade/bar, partly in tribute to Jake. The last machine to arrive is Rancala, and when switched on, there is someone already shown as playing it: and his icon looks disturbingly like Jake. When she, the arcade’s tech manager Rae (Tuttle) and its social media guru Chrissy (Sweet) hit start, they are sucked into the game, and have to make their way through various levels, to reach the war camp where Jake is to be found, alongside Rancala’s despotic ruler.

A few things help elevate this above Tomb Invader. Firstly, the three leads – naturally, one blonde, one brunette and a redhead – are likeable and come over as genuine. They’re competent without being arrogant, and soundly motivated by loyalty, both familial and to each other as friends. Next, there’s a low-key sense of wit here, like the very video-game way characters bounce back and forth while waiting for battle to commence, or the backpacks of infinite holding. Fans of The Asylum [and I’ll admit, I am one] will also get a kick out of the familiar adversary which is Level 1’s boss. A shame this wasn’t developed further with other Asylum monsters showing up throughout proceedings. And finally, the action is decent. Not so much for its integral quality, as for being edited by Mark Atkins in a clear and coherent way that’s better than many Hollywood films, which give the appearance a weed-whacker was applied enthusiastically to the footage.

It’s not all good news, unfortunately. On arrival at the war camp, things grind to a halt, despite the appearance of Bai Ling in a role far smaller than her name on the cover implies. The film comes close to stalling out entirely, just managing to rouse itself for the final battle. And given the scope for invention here – this is a video-game world where anything can happen – there’s little evidence of imagination being allowed to flower, beyond a poorly-rendered and largely pointless CGI battle rhino. Spectacle is an area where Jumanji is clearly far superior, and it also could draw comedy from the contrast between the real-life characters and their in-game counterparts. Here, they’re exactly the same – just in skimpier costumes (provoking the line, “Do you think a man designed this game?”). Overall, however, I found myself enjoying this less than its big-budget brother, by an unexpectedly small amount.

Dir: Canyon Prince
Star: Jessica Chancellor, Emily Sweet, Tiana Tuttle, Brandon Root

The Courier

  By

★★★ [plus an extra ½ for hardness!]
“The night Olga decided to paint a British parking garage red”

For one reason or another, in the last few years Great Britain has become the place to go for medium-budget action thrillers. Examples include the Pierce Brosnan-Milla Jovovich-actioner Survivor (2015) or the Noomi Rapace agent movie Unlocked (2017). Maybe this has to do with the “action-thriller” as a general genre, seeming to die out slowly in North America, where the comic book superhero genre appears largely to have replaced it. Be that as it may, The Courier belongs to that “dinosaur” genre. Released at the end of last year, it was not well-received by critics, though one has to ask: why?

No one expects profound thoughts on human nature or the state of society from an action movie. At least, I don’t. What I want to see when watching one, is a more or less well-connected story, nice visuals and definitely convincing action scenes. And though this may have several plot holes, that if you think about them, make the whole story fall down like a card house, it delivers on all of the above-mentioned elements. So I just can’t agree with the many critics who seemed intent on tearing down the movie for no reason at all. This isn;t to say the film hasn’t its problems: The movie opens with music over several photos and headlines of newspapers, and is all over a little bit too quickly, before you can realize this is the backstory (though later, the film uses flashbacks to explain certain things). I was also initially a bit clueless about who would be the main character, as she had not appeared yet.

Crime lord Ezekiel Mannings (Gary Oldman) is taken into police custody while sitting in an American church. As he is under arrest, he can’t do anything against witness Nick Murch (Amit Shah) who is going to testify against him, via internet live feed while sitting in a British safe-house. So it’s up to his daughter Alys (Calli Taylor) to make the necessary arrangements. Unfortunately for Nick, these are for a courier who will deliver a package, supposedly with equipment needed for the online interrogation. But they will unknowingly deliver a device that will release cyanide, killing off the witness and his guards – as well as the courier, who will be made to look like the murderer. [This part reminded me a bit of Unlocked]

Unfortunately for the bad guys, said courier is played by Olga Kurylenko. Kurylenko has made a moderate name as a regular in action movies and thrillers, since she first was seen by a large audience as the Bond girl next to Daniel Craig in Quantum of Solace (2008). In the past she could be seen in genre movies such as Hitman (2007), Centurion (2010), Oblivion (2013), The November Man (2014) or Momentum (2015). Here, dressed in black skin-tight leather and on a motorbike, she evokes visual memories of Lisbeth Salander or maybe Milla Jovovich in Ultraviolet (2006). Personally, I think she is not such a good actress and a little expressionless. But in the context of an action movie, that might have starred Bruce Willis in the 80s, she works perfectly well. There is some good-natured banter between her and Shah (who’s cursing is not entirely convincing), that is funny without becoming ridiculous.

Naturally, it goes without saying that the involuntary heroine has to rescue Nick. Equally naturally, that won’t be easy, for Mannings’ daughter has already called in the heavyweights to finish the mission. Mayhem with fatal consequences ensues. 😉 The movie is R-rated in Germany, and I think that’s justified, with the fights and kills more graphic than we’re used to in an average action thriller today. There is quite a bit of bloodshed, and also remarkable inventiveness, the Courier’s opponents using anything from snipers to drones to master that merciless woman. Meanwhile, she herself has a computer-equipped motor-helmet that could be right out of Tony Stark’s workshop.

If Kurylenko’s character never reveals her name, at least some backstory is given as to why she is such a badass fighter. She used to be an Ukrainian soldier, part of a special forces battalion in Syria. After the death of her brother, she deserted and went to ground, taking menial jobs like this one. So for once we’ve got an explanation, as to why a smaller woman can take on big men who are professional killers. The fact that she is not just throwing them over her shoulder to the wall – like, let’s say, Angelina Jolie in Salt (2010) – adds a more realistic feel to the fights. We regularly see Kurylenko bleed, or even get overwhelmed. When she wins, it’s usually due to her quick thinking, using whatever the situation offers to kill off her opponents, or her army experience.

Some critics have called this the worst performance of Gary Oldman’s career and I just wonder how they came to this assessment. This is a solid, toned-down villainous portrayal by Oldman. You wanna see over-the-top Oldman? Go and watch Léon: The Professional (1994), The Fifth Element (1997) or Lost in Space (1998)! For me, it seems like “evil Oldman” has settled down and mellowed a bit with age. I find it more regrettable his character doesn’t have much to do, due to his house arrest. He mainly sits around, drinks whisky and listens to music – including the Diva Plavalaguna song from The Fifth Element, a nice inside gag.

There’s definitely a desire for some visual beauty and style. For example, when we see at the beginning the courier driving alone on a motorway while drenched in blue light, or flashbacks that pop up in black and white, and sometimes slow-motion. Director Adler has put more effort into this movie than other action directors usually do. Also, the very good soundtrack is worth mentioning. Though the end feels a bit abrupt, after someone turns out to be on the pay list of Mannings, only to run into a trap set by the courier and Nick.

While this might not be anything special or groundbreaking, in my personal opinion, the movie has been judged very unfairly by the critics. It doesn’t blow the feminist trumpet, where you have to point out, like an idiot and a thousand times, that this is a woman who wins against men. Oh, and have I already mentioned THIS CHARACTER IS A FEMALE? But it is a good, mindless bit of fun, of the gorier variety. There are moments in life when you are not in the mood for Bergman, Fellini or Bunuel films and just want to see some well-done bloody action. By that standard, the movie delivers, and should be judged on what it promises to be. If you were expecting something else? That’s your problem, not the movie’s.

Dir: Zackary Adler
Star: Olga Kurylenko, Gary Oldman, Amit Shah, Alicia Agneson