j* movie reviews 2020

The Rhythm Section (2020)

This is gritty girl-vigilante spy-sort of thriller with some really nice composition.

Blake Lively might be better known to some as Mrs Ryan Reynolds, but she's a freaking amazing actor. She did this great gritty thing a few years back called The Shallows, a one surfer-girl vs a shark movie. Like how you make a movie go for a full running time with pretty much just one person, a shark and a seagull is phenomenal. In The Rhythm Section though, she also gets to play with Jude Law (am I the only person who mostly thinks of Jude as the sex robot from AI:Artificial Intelligence?) and also Sterling K Brown (known for Black Panther but great in The Predator). There are a lot of other humans in the film too.

Blake plays Stephanie, who we meet as a sort of prostitute and maybe junky. But she's being drawn into this amazing sort of web of (maybe) vigilante avengers. Her family has previously died on a plane that, as the avengers explain, was actually bombed by terrorists. So she goes on a kind of underground spy development program with Jude Law to that she can avenge their deaths, and those of others who lost family and loved ones.

This is a really gritty little film. It perhaps gives me some of the vibes of Nicole Kidman's Destroyer, but by way of sort of a low-key version of Jennifer Garner's Peppermint. The film is shot in close, tight colourised swatches and I found it very beautiful to watch. There is a lot of toughness and grittiness to Blake's character, and she gets knocked down a lot, but she also gets up again. It was nice to see her sheer determination when faced with what looks like near impossible odds.

The action, when it happens is interesting. Mostly, in fact possibly entirely, it is one chick fighting or taking down an array of male characters. And I felt this was done quite realistically - she isn't a superhero. It does mean you witness a main character who often looks well beat up and bruised and she cops a lot of hard hits and uncomfortable holds. But I quite liked that aspect of it - nothing is easy - but she gets it done anyway.

Tight, gritty, gorgeously shot and a well worth vigilante chick-flick.

J* gives it 4 stars.