Not so fast, Ms Blonde
It left our reviewer shaken if not terribly stirred, and it’s not exactly original, but if you’re an adolescent male Charlize Theron’s action thriller is a winner
As Lorraine Broughton, aka the
Atomic Blonde, rushes around Berlin bashing the bad guys – flashing smouldering looks and generally being a super-cool, super-hot MI6 agent – older readers may be surprised that she doesn’t bump into Modesty Blaise, who was doing this sort of sexy, kick-ass female thing as long ago as the Sixties. Younger readers, similarly, may find their minds dwelling on Scarlett Johansson, although whether they are reminded of Lucy, aka Major in
Ghost In The Shell or Black Widow in the Avengers films will be for them to decide.
Those readers who are splendidly in-between, however, will soon find themselves running out of fingers – La Femme Nikita, Angelina Jolie’s Salt, Milla Jovovich in Resident Evil, Uma Thurman as The Bride in Kill Bill, Jolie – again – in Tomb
Raider… the list really does go on and on. So there’s nothing remotely new or surprising about Charlize Theron’s new film; not even for her. The South African actress has already had a couple of goes at the sexy-but-deadlyfemale-action-hero genre, firstly in the 2005 sci-fi variation on the theme, Aeon Flux, followed a decade later by her impressive turn as Imperator Furiosa in Mad Max: Fury Road.
Now, and having turned 42 last week, she makes it three with – whatever you make of the overall end result – the roughest, toughest yet. Some of the fight scenes are so violent and so protracted that there were exhausted giggles breaking out around me as the battered, bruised protagonists hauled themselves off the ground again for what felt like about round 32.
It’s strange old viewing, with the experience definitely affected by all those glamorous perfume commercials Theron has made of late, and by her time as a model. Adapted from the graphic novel The Coldest City, it combines a noir-ish,
Sin City-like narrative knowingness, which invites us not to take the whole thing too seriously, with the slick visual style of an expensive advert or music video. Realistic it is not.
It’s set in November 1989, just as the Berlin Wall was about to come down. But this – as the introductory caption informs us – is not that story. Instead, it’s a cod Le Carré-like tale of espionage and counter-espionage. A British agent has been executed by a freelance Russian thug, who has stolen ‘the list’ that the Brit had just received from a nervous Stasi defector (Eddie Marsan).
What’s on the list? One of the weaknesses of the film – directed by David Leitch, who has worked on both the Deadpool and John Wick franchises – is that it’s never quite clear. It’s only after I’d come
home to look it up that I discovered it’s a list of Stasi double agents working in the West, including the mysterious ‘Satchel’. It’s Broughton’s job to get the list back and unmask Satchel. Thank goodness her skillset includes fluent Russian and handto-hand combat.
All this is told in protracted flashback from the sort of interrogation – not to mention the ice bath and bruises that precede it – that suggests something has gone horribly wrong. But then the Russians did somehow know she was a British agent right from the moment she stepped off the plane.
There is lots here I enjoyed. I loved the late Eighties setting, which provides a very good excuse for a cool period soundtrack featuring Siouxsie And The Banshees, Depeche Mode and A Flock Of Seagulls. I loved seeing Berlin (in real life, filming took place in Budapest and Berlin, with extra Berlin Wall added digitally), which was a cool city then and, nearly 30 years later, is almost as cool now.
And I loved James McAvoy, who is excellent as MI6’s mad, bad and normally drunk resident agent, Percival. Oozing a dangerous screen charisma, McAvoy has clearly learned from his unhappy time opposite Jolie in yet another female action hero film, Wanted, from 2008.
Theron, who also executive produces, is also pretty good, albeit in a film in which style triumphs over substance in every scene, where the camera work is as quick and slick as the editing.
Clad in an authentic-looking period wardrobe – the off-the-shoulder ‘Boy’ sweatshirt-and-legwarmers combo produced a particularly warm nostalgic glow – borrowing Debbie Harry’s hair and being lit to perfection, Theron’s Broughton sports so many variations on the smoky eye that you wonder she has any time left for proper espionage at all, let alone a lesbian liaison with a young French beauty that – like so much here – should be about female empowerment but very clearly isn’t. This is a film that positively panders to its predominantly young, predominantly male target audience, although a scene that sees a young woman in sexy underwear being horribly beaten up by a male attacker is definitely a step too far.
Theron brings an iciness and sense of detachment to almost every role, but that’s not the problem here. It’s more the ultrafamiliar story (Bridge Of Spies is one of several spy thrillers that come to mind) and the overriding sense that none of this is real or really matters. We’re impressed (both with Theron’s English accent and her commitment to the very physical fight scenes), we’re reasonably entertained, but we’re not remotely involved.
What saves it is the setting, the music and a couple of late twists – one rather good, one somewhat disappointing. Oh yes, and before you ask, this being Germany in the Eighties, old Nena and her 99 Red Balloons do turn up eventually. We knew they would.