‘BLACK SITE’
Michelle Monaghan is always engaging — even in an entirely fungible action thriller like “Black Site,” in which she portrays a CIA analyst playing a game of catand-mouse with a ruthless killer (Jason Clarke) who is methodically picking off the staff of a secret facility for the interrogation of terrorist suspects. Clarke, who barely has any dialogue as an assassin code-named Hatchet (appropriately enough), faces off against a beefy ex-military contractor (Jai Courtney) and other soon-to-be victims, as he dispatches them in spectacular ways. But this is really Monaghan’s show, as she plays a woman with a special reason to want Hatchet apprehended: She holds him responsible for the deaths of her husband and child, who were killed in an explosion at a Turkish medical facility that opens the film. The violent action is predictable, and the plot slightly ludicrous at times. But Monaghan, who knows her way around an action film (“Mission: Impossible — Ghost Protocol”), is never less than watchable. Maybe that’s why the ending of this sophomore feature from director Sophia Banks, working from a screenplay by John Collee (“Hotel Mumbai”) and Jinder Ho, sets up Monaghan’s character for the (as yet completely theoretical) sequel “Black Site 2: This Time It’s Even More Personal.” Not rated. Available on demand. Contains strong, bloody violence and crude language throughout. 1 hour, 33 minutes.