The Rhythm Section

As this thriller opens we see a woman enter a building and point a pistol at an unsuspecting man... the action then jumps back eight months. The woman, Stephanie Patrick, is working as a prostitute in London. She is approached by a reporter who tells her that the death of her parents in a plane crash three years previously was no accident. It was brought down by a bomb and he knows who made it; that person is in London. She buys a gun, intending to kill the bomber but can't go through with it. When she returns to the report's flat she finds him dead. Her only lead is the reporter's ex-MI-6 contact. She tracks him down in the Highlands and he eventually agrees to train her... taking the identity of a dead assassin she starts to hunt those behind the bombing. It won't be easy though; unlike her targets she isn't a natural killer.

I thought this was a decent addition to the revenge thriller genre. The early scenes quickly introduce us to the character of Stephanie and her motives. The scenes of her training in Scotland are solid enough but do go on a bit longer than really necessary, slowing the film down somewhat. Once she has started going after her targets things improve markedly. There is plenty of tension and a feeling that she is in real danger. It helps that, far from being an unstoppable professional, she is a barely competent amateur who is merely good enough and gets lucky. Blake Lively does a really solid job as Stephanie and Jude Law is good as the man she goes to for help; the rest of the cast are fairly impressive too. The film looks great with plenty of interesting locations. Overall I'd not say this was a must see but I did enjoy it so would recommend it to fans of the genre.

Brilliant thriller, is dark, grim at times to begin with but the second half is a very well done thriller that travels many countries. Blake lovely shines in this one. Did the people with low ratings here even watch it till the end? Or just left it in the middle when it kind of gets slower though does not lose it's grip over the viewer. I thought it was a different thriller going by the lack of unrealistic action and stuff there is. The action amd thrills feel very realistic in this movie. Watch it till the end also for the suspense.

Greetings again from the darkness. Kicking off a successful franchise that can sustain multiple sequels is the dream of most actors, writers, directors, and producers. When it clicks, a movie franchise can be a cash cow for many years. Unfortunately, it's just not that easy to create characters that viewers will invest in, or story lines that will keep those viewers interested. Author Mark Burnell has already published four books in his Stephanie Patrick series, and director Reed Morano brings the first one to the big screen. By the time the end credits roll, we have little doubt that "franchise" was the goal.

An opening scene finds Stephanie Patrick (Blake Lively) pointing a gun at the head of a man who is unaware of her presence. A freeze frame shifts us to "8 months earlier." Stephanie is a mess. She is supporting her heroin addiction through prostitution, all with the objective of numbing her pain. Three years earlier, her family was killed in a plane crash. It's the kind of tragedy followed by a grief so devastating that Stephanie has basically given up on life.

Stephanie is jolted back to life when a journalist informs her that it was a bomb planted by a terrorist that brought down the plane her family was on. Now, Stephanie has a reason to exist ... revenge. Clearly some suspension of disbelief is in order here. Actually everything about this story is a stretch from reality or even believability. Quick, name all of the heroin addicts who become world class assassins in 8 months. OK, that's probably not a fair question since you likely don't know many heroin addicts, and you hopefully don't know many assassins. But you get the point.

The film plays like a brochure for a travel agent, as the story and Stephanie have stops in Tangier, England, Ireland, Madrid, New York, and Marseilles. Each stop is pretty brief - merely long enough for some killing. Of course most of the stops occur after former MI6 agent Ian Boyd (Jude Law) trains her on the finer points of being a contract killer. The training includes jogging uphill, a frigid lake swim, how to fight in the kitchen, how to get run off the road while driving, and the invaluable advice to shoot your victim twice (but your teacher only once). Oh yes, and she has to impersonate a presumed-dead assassin. Fortunately, Stephanie was top of her class at Oxford, so she is smart enough to make sense of all these things that make no sense to us.

And another thing ... why do all these people have such perfect and complete files on their targets? Photographs by Glamour Shots, map coordinates to hideouts, and an alphabetical list of known accomplices are all quite helpful when former MI6 and former CIA agents (Sterling K Brown) are trying to get a heroin addict to do their dirty work. Brown's CIA agent turned 'information broker' is the oddest of many odd characters here. He lives in a stunning ultra-modern home and has no qualms about hitting on hot assassins that he knows only by reputation. Thanks to all those marvelously complete files, the only unknown here is the mysterious U17. Well, U17 seems to be mysterious to everyone except those watching the movie.

Blake Lively is a talented actress as evidenced by her work in THE TOWN, THE SHALLOWS, and A SIMPLE FAVOR. She is simply miscast here. Despite the "training" her Stephanie received from Ian, we never once believe she is ready to kill all the bad guys. This contributes heavily to the lack of believability presented by the film. It's a serious story that is ultimately impossible to take seriously as a viewer.

There is a difference in believable and stylish, and director Reed Morano certainly serves up style. She is known mostly for her work as a cinematographer, though she did direct the first 3 episodes of "The Handmaid's Tale." Ms. Morano and cinematographer Sean Bobbitt hit us with some jarring camera work, and the musical inserts are just a tad too cutesy and obvious at their given time: "I'm Sorry", "It's Now or Never", and "Where Did You Sleep Last Night?" (a cover by Sleigh Bells).

Having author Mark Burnell adapt his own novel may have been a mistake, as there are far too many plot holes and ridiculous moments for this to work as any type of thriller. Here are three examples: we never know why Stephanie didn't get on the flight with her family; it makes little sense that the journalist tracked her down; and is that supposed to be a twist or not? Given the inclusion of Bond producers (and half-siblings) Barbara Broccoli and Michael G Wilson (stepson of Cubby Broccoli), we can safely assume that the vision was to turn Mr. Burnell's books into a franchise along the lines of James Bond and Jason Bourne - right down to the fight scenes and international settings. This film certainly sets things up for round two, and if that happens, let's hope more attention is paid to the script ... a crucial element if viewers are expected to buy in.

The film builds really well and had me hooked in but it appeared to just continue to do that. I was left feeling like I was still waiting for it to truly kick into action nothing specifically was wrong with it and as a whole I still enjoyed the majority of it. I can't help feeling however that it was a little anti-climatic in the end.

Blake Lively and Jude Law did a good job with their acting but there is nothing redeeming about this dull franchise-wannabe. The only thing I learned from this mess is never to watch a film directed by Reed again because, honestly, she has no eye for it. The camera shakes so much that I wanted to throw up within ten minutes. By twenty minutes in, I had a horrendous headache.

You want to make an action film? You don't have to have shaky-shaky handheld shots. You want to create tension? You don't have to do it with pathetically lit scenes where, even in daylight sequences, you can't see the expressions of the actors and are squinting to see what is what.

Honestly, an hour in, I'd had enough. The story, whilst "okay" didn't bring anything new to the genre and certainly wasn't fresh enough to hold my attention. Had the directing been better, and the shots lit better then, I probably would have given this a 6 out of 10. But, as it stands, this is a mess.