Anna

Anna

Starring Sasha Luss, Helen Mirren, Luke Evans, Cillian Murphy

Directed by Luc Besson

The Story:
In Russia in 1985, a group of American spies were executed by the KGB, led by Alexander Tchenkov (Luke Evans) and the head of the KGB, to the dismay of CIA leader Leonard Miller (Cillian Murphy).  Five years later, Anna Poliatova (Sasha Luss) is living with her abusive boyfriend when she's approached by Alex for a job - work for the KGB for five years when she'll gain her freedom from her dead-end life.  She agrees to work for Olga (Helen Mirren) and becomes a top-notch KGB assassin who kills whoever she's assigned to kill in order to gain her own freedom.  As Leonard discovers her identity, she's torn between fear of being killed by the KGB and achieving true freedom by working with the CIA - or possibly find a way to work for herself instead.

The Synopsis:
Luc Besson created some fantastic films that centered on strong female leads - "Lucy," "The Fifth Element," "Leon: The Professional" and "La Femme Nikita," but lately he's released a string of so-so to subpar films, like "Valerian."  "Anna" seemed to be a return to his roots by casting an unknown female lead in a tight, action-packed spy adventure, but instead seemed like a tired re-hashing of his classic "La Femme Nikita" in a story that's completely muddied by overuse of flashbacks, lack of action, and a style of film that's so overused you realized you've seen this all before - but done a whole lot better.

Along the guise of films like "La Femme Nikita," "Leon: The Professional," "Red Sparrow," and "Atomic Blonde" to name a few, "Anna" focuses on a young Russian woman who's enlisted into the KBG but comes across a CIA agent who can offer her a better deal for her freedom, and she has a struggle internally as to what to do to make her own life better.  Mixed in with this story are a few decent action sequences (the best one you can see almost verbatim in the trailer) and some great side performances, but all around it turns to another generic female-led spy caper with twists you see coming a mile away - or at least you would if the direction was shot normally.

What Besson does with "Anna" that makes it a bit different is in his overuse of flashbacks to explain something that happens.  Several times events occur in the film that made me scratch my head and wonder how that happened, and then I was greeting with a placard that says, "so-and-so-months/years ago" that rewinds and shows us how what we just saw made sense.  Maybe Besson thought it was an ingenious way to make you think you know what's happening but you don't, but in reality it seems like a lazy way to make something more exciting than it would've been normally.

When it comes to the performances, they're all pretty lackluster, except for Helen Mirren's spin as a KBG leader who dominates the screen (as she always does).  Cillian Murphy and Luke Evans do great as the CIA and KGB leaders respectively who both work Anna's mind and heart and both pretty much give opposite-coin performances as you'd expect a CIA or KGB leader to act.   Model Sasha Luss plays the title character as you'd expect a model-turned-assassin would act - using her "assets" to her advantage, playing the field, balancing innocence and cutthroat intensity, and pretty much being a blank slate.  It's good that Besson cast an unknown, as it made it a bit more realistic and not "oh, that's Scarlet Johansson playing an assassin" going through your mind, but also showcases Luss's lack of acting ability.

The action, as mentioned earlier, was intense when it was happening, but unfortunately didn't occur often.  The restaurant fight scene was intense, fun, and filled with blood and violence (especially Anna making use of the items around her, such as a fork, a pole, and especially a broken plate), but was spoiled in the trailer.  There were a few other action shots that were decent, but the restaurant one was the most memorable, along with a slightly humorous montage of Anna going undercover as a model while also murdering countless people, but again those moments were few and far between.  The best part of the film overall was the opening, and I had high hopes it would continue throughout, but unfortunately the beginning was the best part of it all.

The Summary:
If you want to make a female-led spy film, you need to make it stand out from the countless other films of the style, but Luc Besson's tired effort seemed like a shadow of his classic "La Femme Nikita" that doesn't deliver anything new or memorable to make it stand out from the crowd.

The Score: C-