The Rhythm Section

A very forgettable movie that had no special moments. I was expecting a lot from this film but was sadly disappointed. Story is average at best, weird character development. Extremely disappointed in this film.

Greetings again from the darkness. Kicking off a successful franchise that can sustain multiple sequels is the dream of most actors, writers, directors, and producers. When it clicks, a movie franchise can be a cash cow for many years. Unfortunately, it's just not that easy to create characters that viewers will invest in, or story lines that will keep those viewers interested. Author Mark Burnell has already published four books in his Stephanie Patrick series, and director Reed Morano brings the first one to the big screen. By the time the end credits roll, we have little doubt that "franchise" was the goal.

An opening scene finds Stephanie Patrick (Blake Lively) pointing a gun at the head of a man who is unaware of her presence. A freeze frame shifts us to "8 months earlier." Stephanie is a mess. She is supporting her heroin addiction through prostitution, all with the objective of numbing her pain. Three years earlier, her family was killed in a plane crash. It's the kind of tragedy followed by a grief so devastating that Stephanie has basically given up on life.

Stephanie is jolted back to life when a journalist informs her that it was a bomb planted by a terrorist that brought down the plane her family was on. Now, Stephanie has a reason to exist ... revenge. Clearly some suspension of disbelief is in order here. Actually everything about this story is a stretch from reality or even believability. Quick, name all of the heroin addicts who become world class assassins in 8 months. OK, that's probably not a fair question since you likely don't know many heroin addicts, and you hopefully don't know many assassins. But you get the point.

The film plays like a brochure for a travel agent, as the story and Stephanie have stops in Tangier, England, Ireland, Madrid, New York, and Marseilles. Each stop is pretty brief - merely long enough for some killing. Of course most of the stops occur after former MI6 agent Ian Boyd (Jude Law) trains her on the finer points of being a contract killer. The training includes jogging uphill, a frigid lake swim, how to fight in the kitchen, how to get run off the road while driving, and the invaluable advice to shoot your victim twice (but your teacher only once). Oh yes, and she has to impersonate a presumed-dead assassin. Fortunately, Stephanie was top of her class at Oxford, so she is smart enough to make sense of all these things that make no sense to us.

And another thing ... why do all these people have such perfect and complete files on their targets? Photographs by Glamour Shots, map coordinates to hideouts, and an alphabetical list of known accomplices are all quite helpful when former MI6 and former CIA agents (Sterling K Brown) are trying to get a heroin addict to do their dirty work. Brown's CIA agent turned 'information broker' is the oddest of many odd characters here. He lives in a stunning ultra-modern home and has no qualms about hitting on hot assassins that he knows only by reputation. Thanks to all those marvelously complete files, the only unknown here is the mysterious U17. Well, U17 seems to be mysterious to everyone except those watching the movie.

Blake Lively is a talented actress as evidenced by her work in THE TOWN, THE SHALLOWS, and A SIMPLE FAVOR. She is simply miscast here. Despite the "training" her Stephanie received from Ian, we never once believe she is ready to kill all the bad guys. This contributes heavily to the lack of believability presented by the film. It's a serious story that is ultimately impossible to take seriously as a viewer.

There is a difference in believable and stylish, and director Reed Morano certainly serves up style. She is known mostly for her work as a cinematographer, though she did direct the first 3 episodes of "The Handmaid's Tale." Ms. Morano and cinematographer Sean Bobbitt hit us with some jarring camera work, and the musical inserts are just a tad too cutesy and obvious at their given time: "I'm Sorry", "It's Now or Never", and "Where Did You Sleep Last Night?" (a cover by Sleigh Bells).

Having author Mark Burnell adapt his own novel may have been a mistake, as there are far too many plot holes and ridiculous moments for this to work as any type of thriller. Here are three examples: we never know why Stephanie didn't get on the flight with her family; it makes little sense that the journalist tracked her down; and is that supposed to be a twist or not? Given the inclusion of Bond producers (and half-siblings) Barbara Broccoli and Michael G Wilson (stepson of Cubby Broccoli), we can safely assume that the vision was to turn Mr. Burnell's books into a franchise along the lines of James Bond and Jason Bourne - right down to the fight scenes and international settings. This film certainly sets things up for round two, and if that happens, let's hope more attention is paid to the script ... a crucial element if viewers are expected to buy in.

The film builds really well and had me hooked in but it appeared to just continue to do that. I was left feeling like I was still waiting for it to truly kick into action nothing specifically was wrong with it and as a whole I still enjoyed the majority of it. I can't help feeling however that it was a little anti-climatic in the end.

In "The Rhythm Section", Blake Lively stars as Stephanie, a grief-stricken drug addict who discovers her family's tragic deaths were not what they seemed. She sets out to find answers and justice. It's an intriguing if familiar premise, but is it worth watching?

The Good

The film has a small cast but it's leading lady carries the load easily. Blake Lively continues her upward trajectory after strong turns in "The Shallows" (2016) and "A Simple Favor" (2018). She gives a wounded performance as Stephanie, a woman whose spirit died along with her family; a still-living victim of a tragedy. Everything from her gaze to how she carries herself screams brokenness. I also liked Jude Law as Boyd, an ex MI6 recluse. He's a hard-ass mentor figure for Stephanie as he attempts to give her skills to survive on her quest for revenge. He's like Obi-Wan Kenobi if Old Ben was a jerk. He provides a more harsh, stark view of the situation, reality-checking Stephanie again and again.

Another aspect of Stephanie I enjoyed was how inefficient she is as an assassin. After she completes her training and heads into the world to seek vengeance she proves to be rather ineffective. I thought she would finish training and immediately turn into a ruthless expert killer, but she proves to not be cut out for it. She lacks the moral numbness and skill to pull it off, which makes her more relatable. There's also a cool chase scene that's a continuous shot from within the vehicle. It's shot well and accompanied by a good score at times. I also appreciated the color pallet of the film, lots of muted, cold colors to reflect the bleak outlook of our protagonist.

The Bad

The movie has a good first act, setting up an intriguing revenge tale that fizzles out in the second. We never get to know Stephanie, she isn't given character development. She has a goal that she desperately wants to fulfill but she doesn't change as a result of achieving that goal. She's the same character by the end as she was in the beginning, only she's sober now. When a revenge film like this lacks action and style it must make up for that with character and story, and it fails on both counts. Altogether, it feels like connecting dots that never create a cohesive image.

The talented Sterling K Brown is dragged into this to give information and wear glasses. He never feels like a character, he's more of a plot device. The score is good in a few scenes, but the soundtrack is off. Thirty seconds of a Velvet Underground song here and a Brenda Lee song there for fifteen seconds. It's like hitting shuffle on a varied playlist at random times. I also wish the filmmaker leaned less on flashbacks. They could have relied on the leading lady to convey the loss she feels rather than reusing the same flashback scene over and over. The script lacks emotional depth and consists mostly of exposition being traded between characters.

The Verdict

I don't recommend seeing "The Rhythm Section". While it has a strong lead performance, the character and her story are never fleshed out, creating a rather empty experience. The film does offer a unique take on the femme fatale genre, but that's not enough to hold it up. The film is overlong and rather dull. Despite an intriguing start it never goes anywhere, and there's not much fun along the way to make up for it's lacking. It unravels into near-incoherence by the end, at which point you won't really care. You'll just wish you saw "1917" again. I wouldn't worry about seeing this one, even on Netflix.

Blake Lively and Jude Law did a good job with their acting but there is nothing redeeming about this dull franchise-wannabe. The only thing I learned from this mess is never to watch a film directed by Reed again because, honestly, she has no eye for it. The camera shakes so much that I wanted to throw up within ten minutes. By twenty minutes in, I had a horrendous headache.

You want to make an action film? You don't have to have shaky-shaky handheld shots. You want to create tension? You don't have to do it with pathetically lit scenes where, even in daylight sequences, you can't see the expressions of the actors and are squinting to see what is what.

Honestly, an hour in, I'd had enough. The story, whilst "okay" didn't bring anything new to the genre and certainly wasn't fresh enough to hold my attention. Had the directing been better, and the shots lit better then, I probably would have given this a 6 out of 10. But, as it stands, this is a mess.