David R. Walker

Posts Tagged ‘Catalina Sandino Moreno’

Ballerina

Director: Len Wiseman

Cast: Ana de Armas, Anjelica Huston, Keanu Reeves, Gabriel Byrne, Catalina Sandino Moreno, Norman Reedus, Lance Riddick, Sharon Duncan-Brewster

Running Time: 2 hours and 4 minutes

Film Rating: 7 out of 10

Total Recall and Die Hard 4.0 director Len Wiseman returns to directing feature films after a long time in Television as he helms the new John Wick spin off film Ballerina starring Oscar nominee Ana de Armas (Blonde) as ballerina orphan turned assassin who is lethal with a flame thrower.

Audiences need to suspend their disbelief as they re-enter the John Wick universe which is hyper stylized, murky and extremely dangerous. This is a world filled with the Continental Hotels which is basically a B n B for contract killers. Obviously Keanu Reeves is back as John Wick but in Ballerina Ana de Armas firmly takes centre stage in an action film which is incredibly violent and filled with blood lust as the fighting intensifies when Eve travels from the sleek skyscrapers of New York to the bohemian mountains outside Prague to track down the evil tribe responsible for her father’s death.

Ballerina operates on one level as a revenge thriller and on another as a coming of age story of a female assassin who escapes from the beady eyed supervision of The Director wonderfully played with heavy makeup and attitude by Oscar winner Anjelica Huston (Prizzi’s Honour) who adds a level of panache to a film about lethal assassins.

The villain in this piece is The Chancellor played by Irish actor Gabriel Byrne (Vanity Fair, The Usual Suspects) who heads up a cultish tribe whose only mantra is to kill people in a village in the Bohemian mountains.

When The Chancellor’s son Daniel Pine played by Norman Reedus tries to escape the cult with his young daughter, Pine meets up with the Ballerina Eve and literally all hell breaks loose.

Eve fights the whole village and even John Wick is called in to eliminate Eve but she proves to be more than he can contend with. In a bid for her own independence, Eve learns to fight like a girl and use all explosives necessary.

Ballerina is big on lush stylization, dramatic settings like New York nightclubs and snow covered Bohemian villages with killer inhabitants but unfortunately the narrative is a bit weak despite the appearance of a host of John Wick stars including the late Lance Riddick, Ian McShane as Winston and Sharon Duncan-Brewster as Nogi. There is an astonishingly fresh appearance by Oscar nominee Catalina Sandino Moreno (Maria Full of Grace) as Lena the short lived relative, but her screen time like that of Norman Reedus is too short to be savoured. If the screenwriters were clever they would have given these minor characters more of a back story.

Ballerina is heavy on violence and light on plot, saved by great filming, superb fighting scenes and a heroine that proves that female action stars are forces to be reckoned with. It’s an entertaining film with outlandish characters brandishing weapons from samurai swords to hammers, from grenades to guns.

Recommended strictly for fans of the John Wick film franchise, Ballerina gets a film rating of 7 out of 10. Watch this film if you like your ballerina carrying flame throwers and not bouquets.