jonathan-harris17

A vehicle to prove, as if it needed proving, that Charlize Theron can play the gun-toting high-kicking action star with style.

Set in trashy near-wall-ending 80s Berlin, all neon and euro-pop, mixed with a running thread of an ongoing smoky MI6 interrogation.

The plot is a nonsensical mess and as such it's very hard to become engaged with any of it. The film feels long even though the running time is well under 2 hours.

If you want to see Charlize get the snot beaten out of her before she slams a guy's head with a fridge door or stabs him in the face with keys, then this will have something to offer you - one sequence during a street protest is very well choreographed - but otherwise this is a forgettable bore.

Very much an Edgar Wright film - blazing eclectic soundtrack, wham-bam zippy high-def superhero-style cartoon action scenes and yet zero substance with the predilections of a bored teenager.

The introduction, with their shticky choreographed-to-the-music with CGI overlays fascination, and Baby's ultra slick driving getaway for a bank heist, is entertaining enough as a distraction but not something that especially engaged me.

And this remains it's problem as it attempt to deliver some kind of build up to the expectedly hyper 3rd act.

The music-sync thing rather forgotten and Baby, whom it is implied is happy to drive getaway and has been for a while before the start of the film, moves on his conscious.

The reasonable cast of actors have little to work with however when they are called upon. Space is vaguely threatening in his few scenes, Hamm a psycho in love (a la Clyde), Foxx annoying and Gonzalez a gun-toting Bonnie for a couple of scenes - in all, a set of barely two-dimensional characters.

The denouement, where Baby forgets the cars and suddenly opts for the gun, a little bit the desperado (but hey, he's a good kid), is utterly ludicrous and like something out of a DC film.

Stylish yes but utterly forgettable and not remotely engaging or well written.

A film with an intriguing first half hour and set-up, a 70s-style spy thriller with mysterious shadow figures, typewriters and cassette recordings, that loses its way as it dives down into an incomprehensible labyrinthine political head-scratcher.

The muted, stripped down palette and sets and the very intentional non-digital central setup of an accountant transcribing cassette taps does remind of past films like The Conversation.

As it moves on however the initial setup does largely seem like a gimmick to have a base to move off from.

The main reason to keep watching for me is the always-engaging Cluzet. Often called upon to play the 'everyman' in his films (e.g. Tell No One), here he plays Duval very downtrodden - unhappy with his working life, attending AA meetings and living a seemingly very solitary, structured life. And yet when he's embroiled into criminality, he's always believable. He struggles, a fish out of water, usually to be beaten back and really gave me my only reason to keep watching: I wanted to see what would happen to Duval.

A pity given the main parlour games between shadow operatives seeking for 'the notebooks' had lost my interest well before the 87mins were done but there's also nothing especially off-putting going on either.