The Rhythm Section

Year:  2020

Director:  Reed Morano

Rated:  MA

Release:  Out Now

Distributor: Paramount

Running time: 109 minutes

Worth: $15.50
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Cast:
Blake Lively, Jude Law, Sterling K. Brown, Max Casella

Intro:
…while there’s a lot of familiarity here, there are enough new notes to keep things moving.

The messed-up-naïf-who-goes-on-to-become-a-lethal-assassin is a well-trodden thriller cliché, given ample, often impressive play in films like La Femme Nikita (and its US remake), Red Sparrow, Hanna, and The Marvel Cinematic Universe exploits of Scarlett Johansson’s Black Widow. Now you can add Blake Lively’s Stephanie Patrick to the list, and while there’s a lot of familiarity here, there are enough new notes to keep things moving. The third feature film from on-the-rise female cinematographer turned director Reed Morano (who’s crafting an interesting career with films like I Think We’re Alone Now and Meadowland, along with her work on TV’s The Handmaid’s Tale), The Rhythm Section is particularly intriguing for the fact that its central assassin never becomes all that lethal, nor that accomplished.

Broken after the death of her entire family in an air accident, Stephanie Patrick (an excellent transformative turn from Blake Lively, who is barely recognisable here) is now a hopeless junkie selling herself for her next fix. But when a freelance journo contacts her with the truth about what sent her family’s commercial flight up in flames, the frail and feeble Stephanie is suddenly hurled into a world of terrorists, ex-CIA handlers, killers, bomb-makers, and a reclusive former MI6 agent (Jude Law at his rugged, charismatic best) who serves as an unlikely mentor on her quest for revenge.

Though copping its world-hopping plot from the Bourne and Bond films, The Rhythm Section works best when it settles on the engagingly flawed Stephanie. Weak, horribly damaged, and twisted by pain, grief and addiction, she’s a near lost cause in the assassin stakes, and when she gets her act together enough to start ratcheting up the body count, it hardly transpires in the expected super-spy style. In The Rhythm Section, killing doesn’t come easy. And while the film might suffer pacing and plausibility issues, this interesting thematic push makes it well worth a watch.