Cinemavenger

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The Rhythm Section

The Rhythm Section is as good a movie as the rhythm method is a birth control option, and whether you watch the first one or use the second one, either way you're fucked.

Your friendly, neighborhood Cinemavenger loves the absolute lips off of hot chick assassin stories. From Anne "Parry Young" Parillaud to Bridget "Jones" Fonda to Peta "Please Come Back" Wilson to Maggie "I" Q, I've salivated over every movie and TV version of La Femme Nikita. The Long Kiss Goodnight gets me off every time. Atomic Blonde, Salt, Red Sparrow and even Underworld put a big ol' smile on my face and an even bigger boner in my pants.

So when I heard that Blake "Mrs. Reynolds" Lively was going to stretch her acting muscles and hammies as a smoking hot, damaged assassin in The Rhythm Section, I was more than a little intrigued. Will I ever fucking learn?

Lively's Stephanie Patrick lived a privileged, upper-middle-class life with her loving family. Then her parents and siblings were killed in a plane crash, and she quickly became a junkie whore. A freelance journalist finds her and explains that he's uncovered evidence that the plane crash wasn't an accident but actually a terrorist bombing. How this lone journalist figured that out while the rest of the world remained clueless is the first of many asshole plot points that sink this flick before it's five feet from the dock.

The junkie whore with no investigative, military, or other training tracks down Iain Boyd (Jude "I Am The" Law) based on the initial "B," which obviously stands for "bullshit." Iain is the former spy who'd been feeding intel to the journalist. Stephanie asks him to turn her into a killing machine so that she can exact sexy, high-heeled retribution on the terrorists who killed her family. Like any sane person, Iain refuses to help noting that she's not super-assassin material. Then, a few minutes later, he starts training her. More bullshit!

Seemingly overnight Stephanie becomes a badass mistress of murder (still more bullshit!) and globetrots from target to target. Only she doesn't really have the heart to be heartless. Except when she does. Her transformation and revenge quest is as believable as the flat earth theory or Dolly Parton's tits, and her mid-movie dye job makes her look unsettlingly like Robert Smith from The Cure.

The Rhythm Section is definitely not gonna get ya.

January 22, 2021