Can Gal Gadot carry an action film or not? The answer is undoubtedly “yes” as Wonder Woman showed her superior skills as a super heroine, and yet Wonder Woman 1984 and Heart of Stone both have me asking the question again. It’s not as if Gal Gadot performed poorly in either film; the question became, “can her natural charm overcome a WTF screenplay?” And to that, the answer is a disappointed, “no.” (To be fair, that’s true of 99% of actors.)
Heart of Stone had me for a while. The basic premise is that there exists a legendary, extra-national, peace-keeping agency known as The Charter. And spies from The Charter have to be so superior that they can infiltrate “ordinary” spy organizations (like the CIA) without detection. One such agent is Rachel Stone (Gadot). She works for MI6 in tech, but is really employed by The Charter as “Nine of Hearts.”
In MI6, Rachel is a van girl, and the film introduces her as a caper neophyte with no discernable field skills (hence, relegation to the van for the entirety of a mission). When an operation in the Alps goes sour, Rachel first has to enter the field of play and do her part for MI6, then when the thing goes south fast, she has to be the Nine of Hearts, racing down the mountain, at night, improvising transportation on the fly, dispatching villains right and left, all without her MI6 team realizing for even a second that her skill set is advanced or that she even left the chalet at the top of the mountain in the first place.
This is where the film had me. Yeah, it was overblown. And there’s no small amount of “if you wanted to make a James Bond film, why didn’t you just make a James Bond film?” But OK, maybe the producers found basic spydom boring. Fine. So they introduced an upper layer garnish spydom to a multi-level spy sandwich, oh and a supersecret hacker villain (Alia Bhatt, my favorite AI simulation) who somehow knows all about MI6 and The Charter at the same time and anticipates every move before the agents know what they’re gonna do. Fine.
Oh, and there’s a possible love interest in MI6 team leader Parker (Jamie Dornan). Overblown, but fine. You get the idea, right? Gal got mad skills, but for the greater good of the world, she can only show MI6-level competence to friends, even in life-or-death situations. Hmmm, given her profession and constant evil-battling, how long is she going to be able to deceive her MI6 buds? At this point, I am still on the side of the film.
And then there’s yet another Italian city car chase (Do you have any idea how many Italian city car chases have happened in 2023 film? Was there a sale on these things?) leading, sadly, to
both an unbelievable and goodwill-destroying double-cross moment. I literally turned off Netflix when it happened, frustrated that the film went so wrong so fast. (Yes, I eventually caught the rest a week later.)
Heart of Stone is a frustrating film because it really has a lot going for it. Gal Gadot is a likeable action hero. There’s action and misdirection and mystery and fighting and Jamie Dornan giving his Bond audition (“look, I can be in action films, too!”) and yet the tale is horribly overwritten. It’s still light years beyond Wonder Woman 1984, of course, and yet I am still left wondering how many more chances does Gal Gadot get to host an action film. Perhaps what is the most frustrating is that neither Wonder Woman 1984 nor Heart of Stone trusted Gadot to be enjoyable without a flurry of invented crises. We liked Wonder Woman not just because it was Wonder Woman but because Gadot made an excellent Wonder Woman; she brought a depth to the role that had never really seen the screen before. Now we’re treating her like that guy in The Flash – i.e. if you don’t surround her with constant intrigue, the script won’t work.
Here’s a special insight just for you, producers of Heart of Stone – the film didn’t work because of the constant intrigue, not in spite of it.
A tech plotting for MI6
Turns out to have a sleeve full of tricks
An Inception of spying
Leaves this viewer crying:
“Excessive plotting and acting don’t mix!”
Rated PG-13, 122 Minutes
Director: Tom Harper
Writer: Greg Rucka, Allison Schroeder
Genre: My gal Gal
Type of being most likely to enjoy this film: People who are into doublecross
Type of being least likely to enjoy this film: “Stop writing a film and write a film!”
