The Rhythm Section

Brilliant thriller, is dark, grim at times to begin with but the second half is a very well done thriller that travels many countries. Blake lovely shines in this one. Did the people with low ratings here even watch it till the end? Or just left it in the middle when it kind of gets slower though does not lose it's grip over the viewer. I thought it was a different thriller going by the lack of unrealistic action and stuff there is. The action amd thrills feel very realistic in this movie. Watch it till the end also for the suspense.

Blake Lively and Jude Law did a good job with their acting but there is nothing redeeming about this dull franchise-wannabe. The only thing I learned from this mess is never to watch a film directed by Reed again because, honestly, she has no eye for it. The camera shakes so much that I wanted to throw up within ten minutes. By twenty minutes in, I had a horrendous headache.

You want to make an action film? You don't have to have shaky-shaky handheld shots. You want to create tension? You don't have to do it with pathetically lit scenes where, even in daylight sequences, you can't see the expressions of the actors and are squinting to see what is what.

Honestly, an hour in, I'd had enough. The story, whilst "okay" didn't bring anything new to the genre and certainly wasn't fresh enough to hold my attention. Had the directing been better, and the shots lit better then, I probably would have given this a 6 out of 10. But, as it stands, this is a mess.

For an action film about a female killer, this film is pretty dull. It tries to tell a story of an average girl becoming a fully fledged killer, but it is not convincing at all. There is little suspense, forgettable characters and the acting is not very good either.

The Rhythm Section, for all intents and purposes is and functions (however poorly) as a revenge genre film. The problem with the movie lies in the fact that in spite of a meager attempt at training our would-be assassin for 8 months, she has the skills of you, the movie goer. Now imagine yourself as an international assassin. That's about how good she is. So If you think you'd enjoy seeing the beautiful Blake Lively get her ask kicked by 10 people, this is the movie for you. It's almost like reverse action. I've never quite seen anything so one-sided before, and it seriously makes me wonder why it was even made.

This is not Peppermint.

As this thriller opens we see a woman enter a building and point a pistol at an unsuspecting man... the action then jumps back eight months. The woman, Stephanie Patrick, is working as a prostitute in London. She is approached by a reporter who tells her that the death of her parents in a plane crash three years previously was no accident. It was brought down by a bomb and he knows who made it; that person is in London. She buys a gun, intending to kill the bomber but can't go through with it. When she returns to the report's flat she finds him dead. Her only lead is the reporter's ex-MI-6 contact. She tracks him down in the Highlands and he eventually agrees to train her... taking the identity of a dead assassin she starts to hunt those behind the bombing. It won't be easy though; unlike her targets she isn't a natural killer.

I thought this was a decent addition to the revenge thriller genre. The early scenes quickly introduce us to the character of Stephanie and her motives. The scenes of her training in Scotland are solid enough but do go on a bit longer than really necessary, slowing the film down somewhat. Once she has started going after her targets things improve markedly. There is plenty of tension and a feeling that she is in real danger. It helps that, far from being an unstoppable professional, she is a barely competent amateur who is merely good enough and gets lucky. Blake Lively does a really solid job as Stephanie and Jude Law is good as the man she goes to for help; the rest of the cast are fairly impressive too. The film looks great with plenty of interesting locations. Overall I'd not say this was a must see but I did enjoy it so would recommend it to fans of the genre.