Straight up revenge tale with a sultry sweaty South American flair. Zoe Saldana was born to play this role. She is lean like a cobra and is just as whip smart deadly after the death of her parents find her being trained as an assassin by her father's associate Marco.
Parkour over the rooftops of Bogota's slums? Fantastic. The camera races with you and your heart beats because you know she has a ton of disadvantages. Only the fact that she is smart and brave can save her now. She manages to bring an important computer chip to the US Embassy and that gets her a passport to the USA.
It's there that she hooks up with her Uncle who takes her seriously in her desire to become a killer. Instead of discouraging her, he actively helps her become the best killer that she can be and tries to tame a dangerous wild spirit - a force of nature, just as sudden and just as deadly.
Luc Besson wrote this film and he is one of the most underrated action filmmakers out there. His 'District 13' movies are gems of the action genre.
All the actors are terrific in this tale of family and retribution. You know Cataleya can't go on this way forever but you somehow hope that she will escape a fate that was never hers to determine, especially when the FBI agent who has been tracking her for years gets close enough to look her in the face.
I wish they had not included the romance that put her at odds with her chosen profession and eventual happiness. It works because they did such a good job making Cataleya into a sympathetic character but it's no necessary here.
More fighter and less lover would have been the direction I would have liked to see this movie go. That's not to say there isn't action because there is a lot of it and it's stylishly done. I just would have preferred hard charging the hold time and not just action in fits and stops.
I really got into this world of assassins and the men who need to be killed. I found I was not finished with these characters when the movie ended.
7/10
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