Checked out the new international spy thriller The Rhythm Section. I say international spy thriller when I really should say “international incompetent spy thriller” though… and one based on a series of novels (which I have not read) so I suspect this movie might be an origin story of someone who, eventually, actually becomes a decent international spy or assassin.
So Rhythm Section is about a young woman who is a drug addict and prostitute because she lost her entire family in a plane explosion over the ocean. Three years into her downward spiral, she finds out that the plane was blown up by a terrorist… that it wasn’t an accident. And that the terrorist is living in the open in her city (London) and no one is doing anything about it. So she sets out on a bloody road of revenge… once she gets off the drugs, finds someone to train her, and, you know, actually figures out how to get bloody revenge.
And that’s the weird hook of this movie. It’s what might happen if you or I just decided one day to become an international assassin. Spoiler alert: we wouldn’t be very good at it. And she is quite terrible at it. She botches every attempt she makes either by hesitating and allowing the bad guy to get away, hesitating and getting beaten up, or half-assing it, causing the deaths of innocents. It’s certainly a direction to take in your international spy thrillers… certainly not something anyone has done (without it being a comedy).
Because, yeah, this ain’t a comedy. It’s a dour, gritty, sullen movie full of terrible people, a strung-out protagonist, and a lot of mumbling and being cross. And I gotta say, if they set out to make a dour, gritty, sullen movie, they achieved their goals. I will say with absolute confidence that they made (and made well) the exact movie they set out to make. It’s whether anyone wants to see a dour, gritty, sullen movie about a drug addict with few recognizable skills try to become even the barest level of competent with the whole revenge thing.
Blake Lively plays the main character and she looks absolutely terrible. Which is intentional (she’s playing a depressed drug addict, after all). There’s no glamour in her look or her performance and mad credit for her going so far outside her public persona. She’s really good in this flick as this dour, gritty, sullen addict who is trying to get her life right so she can become an international assassin.
I can’t say this was a terrible movie… it does what it sets out to do, it’s well acted, and well shot. It’s competent and capable… though not without some flaws like random, inappropriate pop tunes and some clumsy editing. I wasn’t bored by it. I was kind of endlessly fascinated by its out-in-left-field direction… it’s certainly unlike anything I’ve seen before. And that’s a good thing, even if I can’t put a shiny bow on it and call it a winner.
Score: 77