Muddled plot, tedious script – and they’re planning a sequel
Jolt
16+ cert, 91 min
★☆☆☆☆
Dir: Tanya Wexler
Starring: Kate Beckinsale, Jai Courtney, Stanley Tucci, Bobby Cannavale, Laverne Cox
You wouldn’t like Lindy Lewis when she’s angry. Or when she isn’t, in fact. Played by Kate Beckinsale, the heroine of Jolt is one of the most unbearable action leads in aeons – an all-smirking, all-cursing ladette relic on a life-or-death crusade that doesn’t add up in any respect.
Lindy has been afflicted since birth with a condition known as “intermittent explosive disorder”: the merest flicker of irritation causes her to commit acts of super-powered violence. (Let’s hope she never sees the film.) She keeps these impulses at bay with ad hoc shock treatments, self-administered via a switch on a key ring that connects to a web of wires fastened to her torso.
The premise is essentially a female-led spin on Crank: High Voltage, the riotous 2009 action sequel in which Jason Statham’s Chev Chelios had to constantly electrocute himself in order to survive. Jolt’s Lindy is in a similar fix, although here the electrocutions calm her down rather than psych her up. Another crucial difference is that while both of the Crank films were funny and transgressive, Jolt feels like the kind of drably cynical, button-pushing exercise that only exists because someone in a boardroom said: “Let’s make a female-led Crank.”
Stanley Tucci – why? – plays Lindy’s psychiatrist Dr Munchin, who suggests her condition might be alleviated by some romance. A date
with a charming if mysterious accountant called Justin (Jai Courtney) leads to a second. But before their third, he vanishes, seemingly snatched by the Mob. So Lindy goes into underworldavenger mode, hacking phones and cracking skulls in an attempt to solve Justin’s disappearance, while evading
It’s the kind of drably cynical, box-ticking exercise that’s dreamt up in a boardroom
the goonish cops (Bobby Cannavale and Laverne Cox) who have her pegged as the chief suspect.
While occasional establishing shots suggest that the tale is unfolding in a sprawling neon-bathed future metropolis, everything seems to happen on the same two or three plywood-looking streets, just as Tom and Jerry used to chase each other past the same goldfish bowl 10 times in a row. Like the muddled plotting, risible climax and wearisomely foul-mouthed
script, Jolt’s budgetary shortcomings might have been endurable if its action scenes passed muster. Alas, they’re barely community-theatre standard: it soon becomes apparent that Lindy’s choppy platinum hair is less an Atomic Blonde-like style statement than a means of attempting to disguise some obvious stunt-double work. What’s more, only around 50 per cent of the film’s fights actually happen, since the most violent ones tend to be premonitions that Lindy averts at the last minute with her buzzer. This allows the film to revel in her stabbing and shooting while absolving the script of having to deal with the fallout.
Most blood-curdling of all is a cameo appearance by Susan Sarandon, who ambles on at the end to threaten us with an entire franchise of these things. Ideally, Beckinsale, who’s so much better than this twaddle, will feel that one is enough – though considering she made five Underworld films, perhaps we shouldn’t get our hopes up.