Interesting title. I actually thought it was a Hollywood adaptation of an anime franchise at first. Or maybe some kind of 'Kickass' type clone. Turns out it's actually a sort of 'John Wick' clone but with a quirky comicbook-esque female angle (or a sort of 'Kingsman' clone).
The plot is about as original and exciting as a vanilla milkshake frankly. Young girl Sam (Karen Gillan) is abandoned by her assassin mother when the heat is on. She is then raised by her mother's employer Nathan (Paul Giamatti), who happens to run a firm that employed her mother as an assassin. 15 years later, and Sam is now a top assassin for the firm. On her newest mission, she must take out a man who stole money from the firm. Sam accidentally kills the man who tells her of his kidnapped daughter (why he stole the money). Abandoning her original mission of returning the money, she goes off to save the child, which leads to her losing the cash. Meanwhile, Nathan and the firm have learned that Sam accidentally killed the son of a top crime ring, so they must now abandon her in order to prevent all out war.
So, this might all sound kinda intriguing, but really, it isn't. This is exactly the same kind of twisty storyline that we've all seen a gazillion times before in a gazillion similar hitman-type flicks. The whole angle of an abandoned child being raised by a secret firm to be a top assassin, has been done how many times now? The fact that she follows in her mother's footsteps, and only later on to be reunited with her mother and face all those abandonment issues...ugh!!
I think the real issue here is the blatant 'John Wick' rip-off aspects at play. Besides all the action being a direct clone of said movie, there's a secret hidden library run by three more top-secret female assassins, which serves assassins with weaponry. Think of this as 'The Continental' of this movie basically. But what is really daft is the fact that all the weapons are hidden within actual books. So if you want a specific weapon, you gotta go find the book! So, let's say you're in a hurry for a weapon, as happens in this movie. They have to dig through all these thick, heavy books to hopefully find something of use. Whose dumb idea was this?? When the ladies are giving Sam weapons, they just pile books in her arms (LOL!). Inefficient and inconvenient much?
I'm not even sure what that library is supposed to be, an independent organisation of some kind? Yet presumably linked with all the assassins, but unknown to the big criminal gangs? And all assassins in this world seem to be females? A perfectly diverse trio in charge of the library I might add, Michelle Yeoh (as the same martial arts character she always plays), Angela Bassett (trying way too hard to be a hardass), and Carla Gugino (the typical cardigan-wearing librarian).
It's not all stupid rip-offs though. The visuals and style of the picture are a bit unique. There is definitely a strong kind of comicbook vibe going on here. Very bright colours, many shots and sets look like a panel from a comic. Plus, there is a nice 50's Americana style here and there, mostly with the diner, which seems to be a secret, secluded meeting place for assassins and criminals alike. But also with some aspects, such as Carla Gugino's character look. It almost looks a bit like Dick Tracey (1990) at times. Unfortunately, it does also look cheap with awful CGI blood and gun flares, obvious greenscreen backgrounds, and obvious sets. You can tell it's a Netflix flick.
This movie really feels like a tonal mess frankly. The action is pretty bloody throughout, yet at other times it's hilariously tepid-looking. Watching Karen Gillan try to do John Wick-esque fight sequences was a bit embarrassing. She was horribly miscast here. They tried to make her look gritty, but it just doesn't work. It's like they couldn't quite make up their minds and commit fully either way. Visually its also all over the place. Like I said, it looks at times, but poor at others. Had they stuck with the colourful 50's aesthetic, they would have had something more original and engaging.
Basically, if you take 'John Wick', 'Kingsman', 'Dick Tracey', 'Kickass', 'Everly', and a whole host of similar movies. Throw it all in a blender, add terrible CGI and terrible greenscreen, and then water it down to a sort of PG12/15 level of violence (because they clearly couldn't make their minds up on the violence levels), and you have this. A very, very, very, unoriginal feature that I kinda feel Netflix churned out merely for content purposes. Absolute content!
4/10
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