Today’s topic is “bringing a knife to a gun fight,” something movies address all the time to demonstrate a character is stupid or ill-prepared. In fact, this seems a great way for a character to be killed. In the action film, Anna, it isn’t so much that the “villains” bring knives to gun fights as much as they engage Anna exactly on her level, munitions-wise. Anna is a highly trained assassin. i.e. this is stupid. When Anna enters a combat situation and people start dying, an enemy combatant with the jump on Anna might wish to forego the punch to the back of the head and maybe try a handgun instead. But then, this film would over pretty quickly, I suppose.
Cold War matryoshka vendor Anna (Sasha Luss) is “discovered” in a Russian marketplace. For the Russian Doll impaired, matryoshkas are a metaphor; they show our heroine has many layers. Beware! So three months later when the platinum blonde underwear model pulls out a silencer in an Eiffel Tower viewing penthouse and ices her benefactor, we can hardly be surprised.
What is surprising is exactly how much of this hit has been orchestrated. This is where Russian agents Helen Mirren and Luke Evans come into play. Don’t you dare call the KGB fools; getting an unwitting foreign agent in the right place at the right time to “discover” Anna involved months of meticulous planning, right down to the obstacles in the Moscow marketplace maze that lead the French talent scout labrat to the cheesecake. In Russia, model find you!
One of the problems with Anna is the film plays cutesy with timelines constantly. It’s a little like listening to a bad story teller: “Oh, did I not mention she’s a KGB trained assassin?” And so the film explores that angle. This happens literally at least six times in Anna by my count – Luc Besson wrote and directed this thing so that every time you get a surprising moment, the film goes back and explains how it would have have made perfect sense if we had just known this particular fact … the fallout is the film jolts back-and-forth in time so often, the viewer might get whiplash.
You might be a tad skeptical about Sasha Luss being able to carry a film, especially one so similar to Atomic Blonde or Red Sparrow. Let’s face it: Sasha is gonna Luss when you compare her to Charlize Theron or Jennifer Lawrence. But don’t let the lack of name recognition carry the day; see for yourself if you find believable the scene where Olga (Mirren) orders a restaurant hit and, oops, she forgot to load Anna’s gun. Silly me. How forgetful. My gosh! That pretty girl could die.
Never fear, Anna is resourceful. She reminds me of one of those cooking shows where they deprive the contestants of basic ingredients and see what the chefs can concoct. Without traditional weapons, Anna can stab and slice throats with broken dinner plates, finally finishing off her mark with a salad fork. [Note to self: do not invite Sasha Luss to your dinner party.] Clever as the fight choreography was, I felt the film missed a big opportunity to end the scene with Anna saying, “Now, you’re forked.”
Anna has so many time jumps, Doc Brown asked the film to take it easy. In addition, it will immediately remind action junkies of several recent films. The film also asks a great deal of a relative unknown. That all said, I think it’s better than it isn’t. Luc Besson ain’t my favorite guy, but he still knows action and strong female leads. This Anna doesn’t need an Apocalypse to get your attention.
She looks mighty frail but beware
That Soviet is trained not to care
And when she is nude
Just give up, dude
Y’all should know to avoid the Russian bare
Rated R, 119 Minutes
Director: Luc Besson
Writer: Luc Besson
Genre: The one that allows for the maximum amount of violence and sex
Type of being most likely to enjoy this film: Anybody into convoluted tales of Russian supermodel assassins
Type of being least likely to enjoy this film: The people who have to put up with anybody into convoluted tales of Russian supermodel assassins
