A woman seeks revenge against those who orchestrated a plane crash that killed her family.
Barbara Broccoli and Michael G. Wilson, the producers of the James Bond movies, have stepped outside their comfort zone and produced an action film that does not include 007, or, indeed, any other 00. “The Rhythm Section” is a well-constructed and well-acted piece of entertainment but, for the most part, it is unremarkable. I can’t blame the filmmakers or even the cast, the blame here lies squarely on the shoulders of Paramount Pictures who have promoted this movie as a non-stop action film in the vein of James Bond and Jason Bourne. The problem is, it is neither. It is a slow-burning tale of intrigue and revenge and if I had known that going in, I might have enjoyed it more. Maybe now that you know you might enjoy it for what it is.
Blake Lively plays Stephanie Patrick, a young Englishwoman who we discover, lost her mother and father and two younger siblings in a plane crash three years earlier. Unable to cope with the tremendous loss, she now lives in a brothel as a prostitute and junkie. When an independent journalist, Keith Proctor (Raza Jaffrey), approaches her and informs her that the plane in which her family perished on, was not an accident but the result of a terrorist attack, she immediately rebuffs him and has him thrown out of her room. Later, she reluctantly agrees to meet with him and he fills her in on all the information he has collected over the years, stating that he has a contact who used to be MI-6, who has helped him gather the intelligence. He gives her the name of the man who planted the bomb on the plane, Reza (Tawfeek Barhom), as well as his photo and tells her that he is walking the streets of London free.
When he leaves the next day for a meeting, Stephanie takes photos of all his information and leaves. She manages to pick up a gun from an old acquaintance and having learned that Reza is attending a university in London, she makes her way there and after locating him in the cafeteria, she sits down at his table where he is with two other friends and from underneath the table, she retrieves her gun but cannot work up the nerve to pull the trigger. Reza leaves and she makes her way back to Keith’s apartment only to discover his body lying in a pool of blood and a bullet in his head. With nowhere to turn, she looks at a map of Inverness in Scotland that belonged to Keith where he said his contact, named “B,” supposedly resides. She travels to the location on the map and she is taken hostage by B and locked up in a small room next to his house. Having previously worked for MI-6, he is aware that Keith is dead and who Stephanie is.
He keeps her locked up for a few days, enough time for her to go cold turkey and quit her drug addiction. Once she is coherent, B (Jude Law) demands to know why she located him. She tells him that her family perished in the plane crash that Reza was responsible for and she wants revenge. He states that she is unskilled and untrainable but she insists until he finally agrees. Over time, she recovers her strength and he teaches her how to shoot a gun and how to fight. He gives her the alias of a ruthless hitwoman he once used to know who mysteriously disappeared a few years earlier with the hopes that anybody who exposes her identity, will think twice about crossing her. As Stephanie and B realize that Reza is just a bomb-maker at the bottom of the ladder to a Middle Eastern terrorist organization, she makes her way around the world, taking out those responsible for her family’s demise and slowly comprehending, that those that appear to be on her side, might actually be traitors, or double agents, with agendas of their own.
Blake Lively was an unusual choice for this film but she plays the part with great conviction, as well as owning an admirable English accent. She appears only too happy to substitute her natural beauty for that of a strung-out junkie-come-assassin. Jude Law appears sporadically throughout and they both share undeniable onscreen chemistry that thankfully never succumbs to romance. The action set pieces are impressive as are the locations that, much like the Bond films, are widespread and include London, Inverness, Tangier, New York, and Marseille. The action, what little there is, lights up the screen splendidly, making you wish the filmmakers had invested just a little more in that department. The story tackles the subject of revenge and as B informs Stephanie at one point, “pulling the trigger is easy, living with it is hard.” In the beginning, when Stephanie has the chance to take out her enemies, she does so very reluctantly, realizing that pulling the trigger is not as easy as she thought but by the movie’s end, she becomes hardened, ascertaining that the people she has to deal with, are cold and ruthless and willing to kill innocent people in order to achieve their objectives and so she must become like them in order to take them down.
Naturally, the ending is left wide open for a possible sequel and for all the people out there who say that the next James Bond should be a woman, this could be your answer, a strong, independent female who takes down the bad guys when no one else can, or will. James Bond is a man, plain and simple, he was written as a man, and should always be a man. If you want a female spy, create your own character from scratch, don’t mess with fifty-plus years of successful big-screen incarnations.
Now available on Digital HD and on Blu-ray and DVD April 28th
