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movie review - Anna

the journal of Michael Werneburg

twenty-seven years and one million words

Burned out after another brutal week at work, I sat in front of Netflix and took a chance on this movie about a beautiful young Russian woman who winds up working for the KGB in the waning days of the USSR. Full of betrayal and assassinations, it's standard Cold War fare, with a clever plot that involves the assassin's bid for "freedom". In this, she plays the KGB and CIA off against each other while leaving quite a trail of corpses. All the while, our heroine has a day job as a model that provides scant cover for her busy schedule. Writer/director Luc Besson, who brought us "The Fifth Element" in the Pleistocene, employs non-linear presentation to unravel the various betrayals and reveals, and on the whole it works. But the assassin has borderline super-hero skills and it wears a bit thin in points. I will say that although this reminded me quite a bit of Red Sparrow they're quite different. For one thing that one was grimly miserable and this one has more of a heist movie energy, ever so slightly self-aware. I would certainly watch this film again, instead of that.

Recommended. But mostly for fans of the genre.