OFFBEAT BOND
The Rhythm Section tries to mimic 007, but the movie never finds its own groove
The Rhythm Section is the newest film from Eon Productions. You may know Eon as the force behind the James Bond franchise. You may also recall that Eon producer Barbara Broccoli recently told the media that James Bond, unlike Doctor Who, Prospero and the Ghostbusters, will be forever male.
This new movie feels like it’s hammering that point home.
For in spite of the similarities between Stephanie Patrick and James Bond — travel to exotic locations, propensity to kill, connection to British Intelligence, based on a popular series of novels, hopeful for oodles of profitable sequels — The Rhythm Section is no Bond film.
Stephanie is played by Blake Lively, who in recent movies has battled immortality (The Age of Adaline), sharks (The Shallows), blindness (All I See Is You) and Anna Kendrick (A Simple Favor). She has numerous adversaries in this one — it’s one of those films where (again, not unlike Bond) you can expect at least one friendly face to turn up dead, and another to turn out to be not so friendly after all.
Stephanie lost her family in a plane crash that turns out to have been a bombing. We see them in flashback — they seem like a nice bunch, a little sepia-toned and
out of focus perhaps — and we see what Stephanie has become in the three years since; a dropout, a drug addict and a prostitute.
Things change when she meets a freelance journalist (Raza Jaffrey) who has been doggedly investigating the incident and has identified the bomb-maker. This in turn leads her to a reclusive MI-6 type (Jude Law) who, over the course of eight months, whips her into killer shape, literally. She then hooks up with Marc Serra (Sterling K. Brown), a former CIA operative and information broker.
Never mind the incredulous notion of a journalist — a freelance journalist! — working on a single story for three years; the film offers a bare-bones explanation for that. But addict to assassin in eight months? I couldn’t learn varsity-level curling in that amount of time!
This is just the start of the problems with the plot of The Rhythm Section, which leaves so many loose threads by the end that you could crochet yourself a nice afghan during the closing credits. We hear about a “cover up” of the bombing exactly once. Stephanie and Marc exchange information and discuss payment, but we never see research done or money change hands. And why does Law’s character “train” her by attacking her at odd moments? Does he think he’s Cato in an old Pink Panther movie?
Add to this that the film’s first half, which at times feels like an unending training montage, can be slow. How slow? Stephanie’s first inter-territorial trip is from London to Inverness, Scotland — by coach. And the last mile she walks. Her quarries are a faceless bunch of baddies, most of them living in small cities with winding medieval streets — she visits Madrid, Tangier, Marseille and, for variety, New York. The top target is faceless and nameless too, known only as U17, which sounds like a dreadful Irish rock cover band. Lively does the best she can with the material — in fact, she went above and beyond in the making of the film, which had to shut down for six months after she was injured in a stunt.
But The Rhythm Section does her no favours. Example: A car chase, meant to unfold in a single, thrilling shot, features so much shaky-cam and whip-pans and so little focus that viewers may feel nausea rather than awe. And killings always take place to the music of the ’60s. Perhaps it’s another reference to early Bond? It would take a top spy to know for sure.