I had to think about this one a lot before reviewing it. There’s something about the presentation of the movie – straight-to-video, Milla Jovovich, revenge thriller – that doesn’t exactly invite a lot of post-credits dissection but I think if you go into this expecting the simple, trashy revenge thriller it purports to be, you’re only in for some disappointment and might be better off renting something like Payback or even Léon, which this movie actually sort of resembles in places. This has far deeper things on its mind.

There’s something massive missing at the end of this movie which for a long moment I saw as a major problem with the movie, and it concerns the revenge that is dealt upon the abusive Big Al, played terrifyingly convincingly by Angus Macfadyen. For what we see him do to Milla Jovovich’s Kate early on in the movie – a scene which goes down with such scenes as Noodles’ rape of Deborah in Sergio Leone’s Once Upon a Time in America as one of the few scenes in cinema that I physically can’t keep my eyes on the screen for – it is far from enough. This movie is no Kill Bill. But the more I think about how Kate exacts her revenge, the more astonishing I think this movie really is.

I still feel the need to say, as a movie, it’s certainly lacking – and whether or not that’s just because I’m so conditioned to a standard in movies of this kind and simply averse to someone trying something new, I think it still stands as a criticism … the ending plain and simply isn’t satisfying cinematically. But as a statement about violence, it’s powerful as hell, and definitely deserves a larger audience than it’s likely to get. Milla Jovovich is better than ever, and the movie touches on difficult contradictions that I’ve rarely seen even approached on film before. I expect it’ll stand up to multiple viewings well, too – certainly a second one will be required.

This entry was posted on Friday, April 13th, 2007 at 4:48 pm in 4 hearts, Movie Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.