This film is centred on Ava Faulkner, an assassin with addiction problems and a desire to know why her victims are being targeted. This latter quirk bothers her employers. Duke, her direct superior and father figure wants to protect her but others, higher up, believe she is a liability. After an operation goes wrong due to faulty intelligence she suspects that her employers want her dead. Duke tries to persuade her that she is just being paranoid. If that weren't enough there are problems with her family; her ex-boyfriend Michael, who is now her sister's fiancé, has gambling problems which have led to large debts.
I thought this started well and was intrigued by Ava's life as an assassin... I assumed that the plot would eventually lead to who her employers were and what their motives were. Instead it led to the unnecessary subplot involving Michael; this felt a distraction from the main story, as if the makers thought they had an hour's worth of material and needed to pad the film out to an hour and a half. It is a pity they didn't pad it with a bit more action connected to the main plot as what we got there was exciting and well-choreographed; the fights had an impressively physical feel to them. There are of course plenty of clichés but that goes with the genre. Jessica Chastain gives an impressive performance as Ava and John Malkovich and Colin Farrell are solid as Duke and antagonist Simon respectively. Geena Davis is fun as Ava's mother, although her presence made me think of her lead in 'The Long Kiss Goodnight'; a superior female lead action film. Overall it passes the time well enough if you are a fan of the genre but is hardly a must see.
