The new movie Ava is available for streaming rental at a reasonable price. It’s not getting particularly good reviews but I decided to give it a shot (on iTunes) due to the quality of the cast. Jessica Chastain, John Malkovich, Colin Farrell, Geena Davis, and Common are all good actors… though that doesn’t mean they always pick good projects.

The movie stars Chastain as an international assassin who is having doubts or guilt about her work. She carries out her assignments but her handlers are having their concerns. After a messy job, she goes home to see her family for the first time in eight years… but trouble follows and she soon has to fight to survive.

Jessica Chastain is a good actress who I like and, in the dramatic scenes, she’s better than the material. But either she’s not a convincing action star or the action coordination and stunt doubles just aren’t up to the task. And that carries over to Malkovich and Farrell. The film is trying to be a modern style action flick in the vein of Atomic Blonde or John Wick but it doesn’t really succeed. The fight scenes are just a little too low energy and, as I said, are unconvincing.

The drama, which is mostly made up of realistic familial drama as Ava connects with her sister, ex-boyfriend, and passive-aggressive mom, is fairly well acted. But they struggle to connect to the audience… good acting here doesn’t raise the connection we have to the material. Plus it doesn’t mesh well with the rest of the action/assassin storyline. It feels like two different pictures… like they wanted to make a homecoming film but thought they had to insert random action scenes to keep our interest. I think action fans will be bored half the time and left high and dry by the low-effort action and people more interested in the drama will get nothing from the other half of the flick.

I think the acting is generally fine but the film is too disjointed and only does half of what it’s trying to do well. But even that drama is never particularly compelling story-wise. It’s a flick that’s easily skippable. It’s a comedy, but watch Grosse Point Blank instead… similar story, much more entertaining.

Score: 68