ANNA
2019 | Luc Besson
In 1985, the identities of nine American CIA operatives in Moscow were exposed. Vassiliev (Eric Godon) ordered to kill everyone and sent their heads to Leonard Miller (Cillian Murphy) at CIA headquarter.
Five years later, an agent is sent to Moscow to scout new faces for a modeling agency in Paris. He receives a tip from a guy he met in the club to go to the market. There he finds Anna, a beautiful woman selling Matryoshka dolls. He is impressed and immediately offers her a modeling job in Paris. But it’s in fact, a part of KGB plan that puts Anna there.
Anna quickly gains recognition and makes her way closer to her target. Once she acquires the information she needs, she reveals herself as an assassin and kills her target.
Then the timeline goes back to three years earlier, telling a story about how Anna became a KGB assassin. KGB officer Alex (Luke Evans) believes that she has the potential to be a KGB agent based on her family and educational background. He makes a promise that she only has to work for KGB for five years, then she will be free to go wherever she wants. But the head of KGB, Vassiliev is not willing to accept the agreement that Alex has offered, he gives an implication that death is the only way out of the KGB.
This film is highly unconvincing, it’s so much worse than Red Sparrow (2018). The film relies too much on a time-shifting structure with so many pointless flashbacks. We all know a story like this, it has been told many times before.
There is also a part in the film that shows a montage video of Anna killing people while Need You Tonight by INXS is being played in the background, making it look like a silly music video.
And why is everyone speaking English in Russia? The fight scenes are well-choreographed, but still not at the level of Atomic Blonde or John Wick.
