The Slow Burn Of Atomic Blonde

The Good: Good acting, Good direction, Engaging plot, Good reversal
The Bad: Thinly-defined characters, Predictable plot progression/fight sequences
The Basics: Atomic Blonde might have burned itself up on the hype, leading to an under-performing opening weekend, but objectively viewed, it is an impressive film worth attention!


The prevailing wisdom in the world is that, given a choice between the two, a book is always better than the movie upon which it is based. There are exceptions to that rule, but often when they come up, the topic is hotly debated in fandom. A few months ago, I was drawn into watching the red band trailer for the film Atomic Blonde and the trailer was so compelling and intriguing that I hunted down the graphic novel upon which the film was based. The book, The Coldest City (reviewed here!), was insular, featured terrible artwork, and vastly prioritized the realism of its setting over the development of the characters involved. In fact, if anything, reading The Coldest City made me less excited about seeing Atomic Blonde.

Despite that, I eagerly attended an opening day showing of Atomic Blonde and the fact that it took me almost a full day to write my review speaks to the fact that the film has a density to it and requires some unpacking to truly appreciate it. In fact, Atomic Blonde is far better than its source material and it is a rare example of how those who are too tied to the original work upon which a film is based are likely to experience an initial disappointment with the movie.

Writer Kurt Johnstad adapted Atomic Blonde from The Coldest City and he found the absolute right balance of fidelity to the original work and fleshing the material out. The Coldest City is a short book - a fast read packed more with jargon than substance and development. Johnstad fleshes the bones of the book into a more-realized film by giving its protagonist, Lorraine Broughton, a genuine romantic relationship (Atomic Blonde is already being accused to having a gratuitous lesbian relationship, but the truth is Lorraine's relationship with Delphine allows Broughton to be humanized, fleshed out beyond her job and, frankly, is hardly as erotic as one might guess for having Charlize Theron naked) and fleshing out the film's primary antagonist with a truly brutal example of KGB tactics. Even better, Johnstad eliminates one of the fundamental problems with The Coldest City by referencing Satchel - the Soviet double-agent - immediately in the film (in the book, the first reference to Satchel comes perilously late in the narrative, creating an artificial and disturbingly forced reversal at the climax of the graphic novel).

The thing is, Johnstad's script is good, but it hinges upon the film's end because of the way director David Leitch directs the movie. Throughout Atomic Blonde, Johnstad gives obvious hints to how the book ended and it's tough to call it a "spoiler" as the book has been out for over five years. Leitch, however, insinuates the reversal at the end of the book through the alcohol in the film and as the film goes on, it is hard not to believe that the spies are not picking up on the Obvious Clue being left as to Satchel's identity. The reason that it took me so long to write my review of Atomic Blonde was that I spent much of the viewing annoyed at Leitch for directing the clue to Satchel's identity so obviously.

David Leitch, however, earns a lot of credit for his direction of Atomic Blonde; had I had faith that he was not simply telegraphing the end of the film, I would have enjoyed it quite a bit more. And there is a lot to enjoy in Atomic Blonde, but the film is a slow burn, the opposite of Wonder Woman (check out why I assert that film gets worse the more one deconstructs it here!) - Atomic Blonde gets better the more one considers it.

Set in November of 1989, Lorraine Broughton is called into MI-6 Headquarters for debriefing. There, she is interrogated by Eric Gray, while the C.I.A. observer Emmett Kurzfeld looks on and Broughton's boss, C, observes through a double-sided mirror and records the session. Ten days prior, Broughton was tasked with going to Berlin to recover the corpse of James Gasciogne, an MI-6 agent who was killed by a Soviet spy. Broughton is tasked with both recovering the corpse, under the alias of a lawyer working for the dead man's estate, and recovering a list that Gasciogne appeared to have died for; a list of every spy working in Berlin.

After arriving in Berlin and discovering her identity has already been compromised when the Soviets attempt to kill her, Broughton meets with the surviving MI-6 station officer in Berlin, David Percival. Percival is believed to have "gone native" and operates a black market in Berlin intended to destabilize East Berlin by exciting the youth culture there. It does not take long after Broughton arrives for the list to resurface, but the mission is complicated by Spyglass, an operative who has memorized the list and needs to be extracted from East Berlin, Soviet operatives attacking and a French spy who develops a quick, passionate, relationship with Broughton.

Atomic Blonde is a well-directed film and one of the aspects I particularly enjoyed about the movie was that it was violent without being overly gory. There are numerous occasions when two characters are in a life and death combat situation and Leitch puts one character's back to the camera and allows the brutality or kill shot to be obscured. The film is populated by fast punches, surprisingly limited blood splatter and when characters are, for example, shot in the head, it often happens at a distance that is anything but intimate, making the violence and the fighting much more entertaining than unsettling.

Music plays a big part of creating the atmosphere of 1989 Berlin (on both sides of the Wall). The soundtrack for Atomic Blonde is an impressive blend of period-specific songs and remixes/foreign language versions of the songs. Similarly, the costumes are impressive.

Far more than being a style film, Atomic Blonde does a good job of making Lorraine Broughton interesting to watch. Broughton is characterized as a tough, all-business spy, but she is humanized by her relationship with Delphine, the French spy. Broughton lets down her guard with Delphine and the relationship she develops with Delphine allows Broughton to see the potential life she could have outside spycraft. And Atomic Blonde might be impressively erotic (I suppose it is to some people), were Broughton not already pretty bruised by their first encounter.

Charlize Theron is entirely convincing as Lorraine Broughton. Theron sells her character's aliases and her efficient, professional, coldness - she is a viable spy. In fact, the moment Theron gets the viewer to fully invest in her character's abilities and competence is when Broughton sarcastically observes, "I can read a fucking map." In a world that predates smartphones and instant connectivity, Theron realistically portrays a human asset. Sofia Boutella is fine as Delphine Lasalle, but she plays Lasalle like a reluctant spy; a woman who wishes far more she took one of her other job options. Regardless, there is no hint of her character from Star Trek Beyond (reviewed here!) in her performance in Atomic Blonde.

James McAvoy, John Goodman, Toby Jones, James Faulkner, and Rolland Moller all give good supporting performances (though I spent much of Atomic Blonde thinking of Moller, "Sean Harris really has some range in this!") in Atomic Blonde. McAvoy is well-cast as the emotionally-confused Percival.

Ultimately, Atomic Blonde is an entertaining spy thriller that does a decent job of fleshing out a bare-bones idea in compelling ways, even though it still is somewhat plot-heavy and more concerned with action-adventure entertainment than making its protagonist truly well-rounded and compelling.

For other films currently in theaters, please check out my reviews of:
Spider-Man: Homecoming
Baby Driver
Transformers: The Last Knight
Rough Night
Wonder Woman

6.5/10

For other movie reviews, please check out my Film Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2017 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Payback For The Next Generation: John Wick

The Good: Decent acting, Good action sequences, Cool protagonist and supporting characters
The Bad: Entirely simplistic plot
The Basics: After the death of his wife, the grieving John Wick finds himself drawn back into the criminal underground when a Russian mobster kills his dog and steals his car.


Every now and then, I find an action movie that is simplistic, but laudable, or at least easy to recommend and equally easy to enjoy. For many years, my gold standard of such movies has been Payback (reviewed here!). So, when I continued to hear good things about John Wick I decided to check it out. While I enjoyed the film, it is, for all intents and purposes, Payback remade.

John Wick is an equally straightforward action thriller and directors David Leitch and Chad Stahelski have a decent sense of style to make the film watchable. But they and writer Derek Kolstad are not winning any points for originality with the film. Instead, John Wick starts with a simplistic premise and, because of the film’s opening narrative conceit, works to the only logical conclusion an attentive viewer can expect. The film is enjoyable, but not highbrow, and the fact that it is set-up as a flashback robs the film of much of its spontaneity and suspense. That said, it succeeds as entertainment and as a surprisingly satisfying revenge flick.

Days after he buries his wife, John Wick is bloody and near-death; collapsing and he watches a video left by his lost love. The film flashes back to Helen’s death, John being visited by Marcus and receiving a posthumous gift from Helen; a dog. John slowly adapts to having Daisy in his house, life and car. After a young thug takes notice of John’s 1969 Mustang, he is visited in the night by the thugs who kill Daisy and take the car. The thug is Iosef Tarasov, son of the Russian mobster Viggo Tarasov and when Iosef takes John Wick’s car to Aurelio, even Aurelio wants nothing to do with it. The reason is simple; John Wick is an incredible assassin, the one who built Viggo Tarasov’s empire by eliminating his competition.

Learning the identity of the car thief, John Wick calls Viggo and when Viggo refuses to turn Iosef over to him (or make any sort of deal), Wick begins a spree of killing and destruction that puts him on a direct course for Iosef and Viggo. Viggo puts a bounty out on Wick’s head, but when the first waves of assassins are easily dispatched in Wick’s house, Wick moves into the criminal hotel. Protecting himself and the underground, Winston turns over the location of Iosef and that leads Wick to hunt the young man through Little Russia, destroying much of Viggo’s infrastructure and leverage in the process. Inspired by an ever-rising bounty, assassins like Perkins and Marcus turn on Wick, even in the confines of the protected hotel. Left on his own, John Wick tracks down the son and his father for revenge and to get the price lifted from his head.

John Wick is characterized beautifully by Viggo as “The man you send to kill the boogeyman.” The fear Aurelio and Viggo have relative to the apparently easy-to-subdue Wick is made understandable when Viggo’s initial barrage of men are wiped out with startling ease. John Wick is one of the few such films based upon an almost entirely believable premise; because Wick eliminated most of the mobsters and assassins in the City for Viggo, he knows Viggo’s weak spots and the surviving members of the underworld who are still active. As a result, he lets several people live (and they are grateful for the opportunity to run away) and he slays through the rest with ease.

The thing is, the initial attack on John Wick aside, John Wick is an entirely sensible movie so far as revenge movies go. Wick is retired from a lifestyle, but retains all of the skills and contacts he had. So, of course, he could get a clean-up crew to help him dispose of the bodies he racks up.

What makes John Wick more watchable than the average action revenge film – outside the realistic motivation of a man in mourning who continues to lose the things that are most important to him – is the general sense of realism to the film. John Wick may be the ultimate revenge fantasy, but Wick has to contend with realistic issues like police and hotel management calling him out for noise violations! Chaos does not ensue as fast in a loud Russian nightclub as it does in an otherwise empty house because of the loud music. The directors got the sound engineering absolutely right for a film where noise is a real-world problem.

Like Payback, John Wick has a delightful sense of irony as viewers watch the protagonist kill his way to the top while all the while wondering, “Why the hell didn’t this bad guy just give him what he wanted in the beginning?!” The problem with John Wick is that the viewer waits for the film to get back to where it began, knowing that – against all odds and reason – John Wick must survive until then.

On the plus side, John Wick has an excellent cast which is used well. Led by Keanu Reeves, John Wick includes the talents of Willem Dafoe, Ian McShane, Adrianne Palicki, John Leguizamo, Lance Reddick and Alfie Allen (as Iosef, a role that makes one wonder if the Game Of Thrones actor can play anything other than a terrified maniac). Reeves is great in the brooding role of John Wick and he sells the action scenes well. He and the supporting cast play off one another perfectly to create a very real sense of a world where this sort of thing happens all the time and people don’t get too terribly attached to one another.

Ultimately, John Wick is well-executed escapist entertainment, even if it is not particularly original.

For other films currently in theaters, please check out my reviews of:
To Write Love On Her Arms
Paddington
Still Alice
Predestination
The Interview
The Hobbit: The Battle Of The Five Armies
Expelled
Annie
Comet
Horrible Bosses 2
10,000 Days
The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 1

6.5/10

For other movie reviews, please check out my Film Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2014 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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