Rated
PG-13 (Violence, Disturbing Images, Intense Sequences of Action, Sexuality and Brief
Strong Language)
Running
Time: 1 Hour & 47 Minutes
Cast:
Zoë
Saldana-Cataleya Restrepo
Amandla
Stenberg-Young Cataleya Restrepo
Cliff
Curtis-Emilio Restrepo
Michael
Vartan-Danny Delanay
Lennie
James-FBI Special Agent Ross
Jordi
Mollà-Marco
Beto
Benites-Don Luis
Callum
Blue-CIA Agent Richard
Jesse
Borrego-Fabio Restrepo
Cynthia
Addai Robinson-Alicia Restrepo
Ofelia
Medina-Mama Restrepo
Angel
Garnica-Pepe
Directed
by Olivier Megaton
 |
| Zoë Saldana, you are sexy. This film, not so much. |
With
a filmography that includes 1990’s “Nikita,” 1994’s “Léon: The Professional,”
and 1997’s avant-garde sci-fi flick “The Fifth Element,” seeing Luc Besson’s
name on a film used to mean something.
Unfortunately, this is no longer the case as his factory-like studio EuropaCorp
continuously churns out action films year after year, and turning what was once
unique into something stale and generic. Like Guillermo del Toro, Besson has
kept himself busy as a writer and producer, with the only films he’s directed
recently being animated adaptations of his “Arthur” series of fantasy novels. His
upcoming film, “The Lady,” starring Michelle Yeoh is set to be released in
November 2011 and is based on the life of Aung San Suu Kyi, who spent fifteen
of the past twenty-one years living under house arrest in Burma. The latest
from EuropaCorp is “Colombiana” and while Zoë Saldana lends a certain gravitas
to her role even as she mows down legions of nameless thugs with an assault
rifle looking like a bad-ass, everything else, from the lazy script to the
generic action scenes, never rises above mediocrity.
During a prologue in
Bogota, Columbia, a drug lord named Fabio Restrepo (Jesse Borrego) tells his
boss, Don Luis (Beto Benites), that he is quitting and hands over all the
bookkeeping and evidence on the cartel. As he leaves, Luis motions to his
right-hand man, Marco (Jordi Mollà), to follow and kill him. Fabio races home
with his remaining loyal men and tells his wife, Alicia (Cynthia Addai-Robinson),
and nine-year-old daughter, Cataleya, to pack their bags. He also tells his
daughter that if anything should happen to him, she will go to the American
embassy and give them a microchip, which contains all the information on Don Luis’
illegal activities. In addition, he writes down his brother’s address in
Chicago. Marco and his men arrive and quickly slaughter Fabio’s guards. Knowing
that it is too late to escape, Fabio and his wife grab assault rifles but are
unable to hold Marco off and are killed. Cataleya escapes with the microchip
and makes it to the embassy by losing her pursuers through the sewers. The
Americans get her out of Columbia into the United States and she makes her way
to Emilio (Cliff Curtis), her uncle in Chicago. She tells him her desire to be
a killer in order to take revenge on Don Luis and asks him for help. Fifteen
years later, Cataleya (Zoë Saldana) is now a highly-trained assassin-for-hire but
only kills those who deserve it. In order to draw Don Luis out of hiding, she
leaves a calling card on all her hits, a drawing of the Cataleya flower on
their chest but her quest for vengeance becomes complicated when she falls in love with an artist, Danny Delanay (Michael Vartan), while the FBI, led
by Special Agent Ross (Lennie James), pursue her.
Written by Luc Besson
himself, “Colombiana” was originally meant to be a sequel to “Léon: The
Professional” titled “Mathilda” starring an older Natalie Portman with Olivier
Megaton at the helm but when Besson formed his own studio, EuropaCorp, in 2000
the production company that distributed the original film, Gaumont Film Company,
retained the rights and refused to sell them. Portman has expressed interest in
making the sequel but with Gaumont unwilling to budge, Besson was forced to
alter the script to what we have now, which is a shame because “Colombiana”
features not one original idea as its
elements are cobbled together from other (better) action films, including Besson’s. Besides being generic to a fault, the story and its characters are poorly
developed. All of Cataleya’s targets are tagged with her calling card in order
to get Don Luis’ attention but the film never explains their connection to the
Columbian drug lord, making all the action scenes ultimately pointless. She
also shares no screen-time with the
villains besides Marco so everyone ends up being nothing but bullet-fodder. Its
attempts at drama prove to be a detriment because of the non-existent character
development and the hackneyed dialogue so the audience is never emotionally
invested in what’s happening.
The way the plot moves is also contrived and
suspension of disbelief is stretched beyond credibility. The FBI is depicted to
be so inept that they steadfastly refuse to believe that the assassin can be a
woman until the mailman off-handedly
remarks that the symbol on the victims is the Cataleya orchid, which is actually
spelled ‘Cattleya’ but apparently Besson takes us for idiots and thinks we won’t
notice the misspelling. At one point, Emilio tries to make a point to Cataleya
by randomly firing his gun in front of her school in plain sight. He then
stands there as he recites some nonsense while the police arrive and innocent
bystanders look on but no one seems
to take notice of him. This is just sloppy filmmaking. Later, Danny takes a
photo of a sleeping Cataleya and shows it to his friend. When he is momentarily
distracted, the friend sends the photo to his sister-in-law, who works at the
local police station, to make sure she’s ‘legit.’ Who does that? Moments like these are scattered throughout the film and
it’s hard to take anything that happens seriously. Of course, the average
moviegoer could care less about the story and are here for the action scenes.
While they’re tightly edited, it all feels stale because we’ve seen it all
before. In a rip-off from the “Bourne” films, Cataleya fights hand-to-hand
using nothing but a towel and ever since the release of “The Matrix,” there’s
always a large lobby shoot-out with flying debris and walls riddled with bullet
holes. Since this is PG-13, no blood is ever shown and this is precisely the
kind of film that shouldn’t be handicapped in such a way.
Zoë Saldana is the
only one to give some semblance of a performance despite the fact that she
spends much of the film in various stages of undress and always without a bra under her clothes. Saldana could’ve gone the
lazy route and rely on her good looks but she commits to her role, infusing her
character with a determined conviction wrought with pain that we can empathize.
Unfortunately, it’s not enough to rise above the mediocre material. The rest of
the cast, from Michael Vartan to Lennie James, do little besides fulfilling
their clichéd functions in the third act. Cliff Curtis is fine but once again
he serves as living proof of Hollywood’s inability to cast the proper ethnicity
for the role as written. Curtis is from New Zealand but here he’s forced to
fake a stereotypical Columbian accent. Jordi Mollà is effective as a villain
(this isn’t his first time) but he has so little screen-time and fails to make
much of an impression.
“Colombiana” was released on August 26, 2011 and has
received overwhelmingly negative reviews with 33% on Rotten Tomatoes. Critics
concluded that ‘Zoë Saldana has the chops but she's taken out by erratic and
sloppy filmmaking.’ Dumped during the penultimate week of summer, the film
flopped at the box office with a tepid $10.4 million debut behind “The Help.”
Hurricane Irene also had a hand with the weak earnings as hundreds of theaters
were forced to close on the East Coast. With an estimated production budget of $40
million, it’ll probably make back that amount (barely) once you factor
international grosses. I viewed the film in the evening and was surprised by
the huge turnout. The audience seemed to thoroughly enjoy it but really, this
isn’t the first time mainstream audiences have embraced terrible films. If
you’re looking for mindless action while staring at Zoë Saldana’s lithe body,
than this is for you but for everyone else that possess some discerning taste
in film, I’d advise you to skip this and catch Joe Wright’s brilliant “Hanna,”
which also features a female assassin.
Final
Rating: 2 out of 5
“I
will not stop until you feel what I’ve felt all these years.”
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