MOVIE REVIEW – Modern terrorism and CIA conspiracy are the main themes of Unlocked, where a gun-toting CIA operative, played by Noomi Rapace takes part a lethal mission in London, where she can trust no one and always watch her back. Sometimes absurd, nonsensical, sometimes fun, Unbroken frustrates as much as it entertains.

 

Superspy movies are mainly male affairs: besides the James Bond series Matt Damon, Liam Neeson and Gerard Butler starred in the main roles. Still “woman power” is rising in Hollywood and thanks to the new trend more and more actresses are getting the main roles previously only male actors could have. According to some rumors, Hollywood already toyed with the idea of a female James Bond,  so it comes to no surprise that Unlocked stars “The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo” actor Noomi Rapace as a superspy, and we can also expect Atomic Blonde during the summer.

“Trust no one! Always watch your back!”

In Unlocked, Noomi Rapace plays a steely CIA operative on a trust-no-one mission to save London from biological terrorism, Michael Apted’s efficient but unstylish film has only a prestigious cast of supporting actors: Michael Douglas, Toni Collette, John Malkovich — to distinguish it from a “Spooks”-style TV outing. None of them, it should be said, brings as much to the table as Rapace, who gives this in-flight special the stern commitment of a star hungry for better things.

Modern-day action cinema is still running a brisk trade in Jason Bourne knockoffs, and while “Unlocked” claims no points for narrative or stylistic ingenuity, it is still a rarer pleasure than it should be to see a woman charged with the butt-kicking. Not that her gender feels anything more than incidental. Another brooding, closed-off agent who doesn’t play by the rules, Alice Racine (Noomi Rapace) is a pretty generic action hero; that only the most minor of script tweaks separate her from being played by, any other male actors. It’s left to Rapace to insert stoically wounded expressiveness between the lines of Alice’s strictly functional dialogue — along with vague blanket allusions to her “rocky background.”

Those women are apt for the job

Noomi Rapace shows she has the chops for this tough-girl part, and she’s compulsively watchable throughout. She’s carrying the film alone as she fights her way with deep-etched conviction through an increasingly tortuous plot whose high-low points come on fast and furious but are chiefly delivered by Orlando Bloom playing a “grizzled” war veteran turned thief, with a Dick Van Dyke Cockney accent.

The story appears to be pulled together with leftovers from London Has Fallen, with scraps from recent dramas Bastille Day and Spooks: The Greater Good throw in for good measure.

It would also be welcome if Toni Collette, channeling Annie Lennox as the head of MI5, returns for another spin. Even Unlocked’s extravagantly silly dialogue can’t dent her panache. Certainly, this is an action film in which the women lead by a clear margin, making it unique in its own highly derivative way.

Good girl, wrong movie

Call it what you will – and reviews may well kill this movie – but Unbroken is entertaining, even if not entirely in the ways the filmmakers might have originally intended.

The aim, it would appear, is to deliver an action hero to rival Liam Neeson, or Denzel or Bruce in their day, and to keep firing until the target is hit. Regarding screen presence, Rapace certainly comes the closest of all the newcomers to delivering the goods, even though they’re stashed in the wrong vehicle.

Noomi Rapace is ready for more action, though this run-of-the-mill thriller lags behind her.

-BadSector-