Summary: A woman seeks revenge against those who orchestrated a plane crash that killed her family.
This will such a short review.
Pros:
The Acting. I don’t care anything about these characters but the acting from the three leads was good. Blake Lively leads the charge as Stephanie Patrick whose entire family died in a plane crash. She develops a drug addiction and becomes a prostitute. Once she learns the crash was staged, she then enters a life to try and exact revenge. I think she’s good, I didn’t realize she was British until a little later in the movie. It’s subtle but I thought she did a great job with it. I think she’s wonderful in emotional moments. Like, you feel bad for her and I feel her anger and pain and her need to get this done. I thought she did really well. Jude Law is Iain Boyd, he was a former M16 operative who lives in seclusion. After Stephanie finds her, he becomes a mentor/handler to teach her to become awesome to take down the people who killed her family. I mean, Jude Law is always good, his character is interesting, and I fully expected a twist with him at the end, so at least the movie subverted my expectations with him. Sterling K. Brown plays Marc Serra, a former CIA agent who gets paid for information. We meet him well into the film, I recognized his voice since we don’t see his face for a moment. He is also always good, and his character teetered an interesting line of being intimidating/creepy/untrustworthy/unsuspecting. These three actors did well for what they were given.
The Car Chase Scene. There was this one scene I really liked where Stephanie is being chased down after stealing a car, after killing someone, and the scene is extremely chaotic. It was probably the one time I was kind of glued to the screen. The camera is in the car with her and it moves around, almost like that ride (the scrambler) where you almost hit the other spinning cars, but it jerks you around. I like that ride lol but it would face forward to see what she’s about to run into, but whenever she looks to the side or behind her, the camera swivels to see and the few times she gets rammed into, the camera is right there like, the person in the passenger seat is holding the camera to see everything. It was cool.
Cons:
The Characters. The acting is good from the three leads, but you don’t know these characters. I cannot tell you what kind of person Stephanie is outside of her being a drug addict and later wanting revenge. Even in the beginning when they showed us with her family, there was a lot of smiling but that’s pretty much it. Jude Law and Sterling K. Brown’s characters were also pretty one note. We learn things about them that could be interesting, but the movie doesn’t go into that, so I found I didn’t care.
She Sucks. First, we’ve seen this kind of movie 50 million times. They all have the same feel. But anyway, I didn’t expect her to become this badass spy overnight or anything, but I expected her to be a little more competent. You want revenge? You better get your stuff together lady. Like, she assumes the identity of a well-known spy “Petra” who was really good at her job, but Stephanie gets her butt kicked every single time she encounters someone. Like I said, I’m aware that it’s only been a few months, but I couldn’t help but to roll my eyes each time she met someone. Then they had the nerve to play that music at the end like she won. I guess technically she did, but I hope you know what I mean lol. I guess in ways, it’s relatable that she’s not Black Widow after however many months it was of training, but she seemed like she was scrappy, sometimes it seemed like she just sat/laid/stood there and took it. I’m like girl!
Boring. It took me four days to watch this movie. I could have finished it the third day, but it was after a late day at work and I was tired. I didn’t realize I had like 20 minutes left of the movie lol. But still. I enjoyed the training montage because who doesn’t like a training montage? but the movie overall is pretty boring. It did not keep my attention to even see if she manages to succeed in her mission. I think it’s the story’s fault though, as we’ve seen this story a lot, there was nothing in that made it memorable or different from the many others.
Overall, this movie is so boring. It took me forever to watch it. Like literally. I thought the acting from the leads was good. Blake Lively is great here and I think this proves she could do some action stuff, I thought she handled what she was given really well. I like her a lot and I would love to see her take on an action role with a good plot and a well told story. Jude Law and Sterling K. Brown were also good. I liked the car chase scene; it was fun, and I liked how the camera was used during this scene. I think there are a lot of problems with the movie, it’s boring, it’s predictable, Stephanie got her butt kicked when she showed some promise in her training. I expected her to hold her own better. The characters were interesting, but the script never allows them to get past their potential of being interesting. It’s unfortunate but I didn’t expect much to be honest.
Rating: 2 out of 5 stars.
Have you seen The Rhythm Section? If so, what were your thoughts? Tell me in the comments below!
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