But I’m not referring to just any movie with Nicholas Cage.
I’m talking about actioners getting serious makeovers from the A-list art-house crowd. Take, for instance Paul Greengrass. Before he was seconded to the “Bourne” franchise he was tackling social issues. Before the “Batman” reboots and “Inception”, Nolan was teasing out issues of philosophy in low-tech thrillers. And really, how the heck did Johnnie To (arguably John Woo’s inheritor) go from helming melodramas to this?
Well when you see director Joe Wright’s new movie, “Hanna”, you might start to appreciate how stirring the pot a little can yield surprising new results.
The film centers around Hanna Heller (Ronan), a 16-year-old assassin operating under her rogue agent father Erik deep in the Finnish hinterland. Their plan? Sneak the multilingual Hanna—versed in innocence and gunplay—into the hands of the CIA in order to give Marissa Wiegler (Blanchett), Erik's former handler, a much-needed dirt nap.
At first glance I found the exercise to be sort of corny. There’s a simplistic revenge motive tacked on to a number of hokey plot twists and ridiculous leaps in logic. But then I thought about my initial reaction, realizing I wasn’t being altogether fair. I did a double-take and found I enjoyed the movie more than I cared to admit initially.
You can immediately tell that Mr. Wright is a huge art buff from the way each shot is rendered. From watching ice floes delicately cycle through cracks in a frozen lake to sun-scorched hillsides of Morocco, from Spanish countryside flamenco to an abandoned amusement park buried in the German wilderness, this effed-up fairy tale is as simple in its delivery as it complex in its visuals. So yes, it does run the danger of substituting flair for story. But at least in one way, one BIG way, the movie is often viciously dazzling.
Meanwhile, the actors support the scenery—their role, almost supplemental to everything that unfolds.
Saoirse Ronan (pronounced "sersha") drifts through her role as both the curious child and the cold-blooded killer, wide-eyed and unnerving as a doll made from porcelain while Eric Bana stealthily moves at the fringes of her life. And while the Southern-inflected Cate Blanchett pulls the strings as the Hellers’ arch nemesis, the real scene-stealer is a cheerful metrosexual mercenary known only as Isaacs (Hollander), whose eerie whistle throughout the film conjures images of Peter Lorre’s famed child-murderer.
Even the music seems to play a bigger part in the action than the players themselves. Following Trent Reznor’s success at the Oscars and Daft Punk’s collaboration with Disney, The Chemical Brothers (whose sounds you may or may not recognize from the Budweiser commercials) inject the film with a brutal verve.
It all adds up to a sense of wonderment that brings to mind the things spy thrillers do best, catering to both the unbelievable and the exotic.
I’m almost reluctant to call this an action movie were it not for the subject matter. Yet to get hung up on realism during a movie like this is almost beside the point. There are no forums dedicated to pointing out the logic gaps in Red Riding Hood or Jack and the Giant Bean Stalk. So why do the same for “Hanna”? Just don’t expect it to make a whole lot of sense and you should be fine.
***
Directed by:
Joe Wright
Screenplay by:
David Farr and Seth Lochhead
Story by:
Seth Lochhead
Produced by:
Marty Adelstein
Zakaria Alaoui ... line producer: Morocco
Josephine Davies ... associate producer
Christoph Fisser ... co-producer
Jane Frazer ... line producer: Finland
Barbara A. Hall ... executive producer
Leslie Holleran
Scott Nemes
Charlie Woebcken ... co-producer
Cast:
Saoirse Ronan ... Hanna
Eric Bana ... Erik
Cate Blanchett ... Marissa
Tom Hollander ... Isaacs
Sebastian Hülk ... Titch
Joel Basman ... Razor
Paris Arrowsmith ... CIA Tech #1
Olivia Williams ... Rachel
Jason Flemyng ... Sebastian
John MacMillan ... Lewis
Tim Beckmann ... Walt
Vicky Krieps ... Johanna Zadek
Christian Malcolm ... Head of Ops
Jamie Beamish ... Burton
Tom Hodgkins ... Monitor
Michelle Dockery ... False Marissa
Jessica Barden ... Sophie
Aldo Maland ... Miles
Nice review! I also found that when I focused more on individual scenes and less on the film as a whole I enjoyed it more.
ReplyDeleteI would have liked more emphasis on her adapting to modern society. It was a very different fish out of water situation than we usually see.