It’s no “Atomic Blonde,” but it’s better than “Red Sparrow.”
If film critics wrote in Twitter speak, that would be my best, most succinct description of the new Blake Lively spy thriller, “The Rhythm Section.”
As a movie fan, there’s nothing here that you haven’t seen before. But, also as a fan, if the vague nature of the trailers intrigued you, I’m happy to report that there’s at least a little meat on the bones, as long as you don’t go into the theater expecting a feast.
“The Rhythm Section” tells the story of Stephanie Patrick (Lively), a young woman who intentionally missed a flight with her parents and siblings only to have that airplane explode mid-flight, killing everyone on board.
The Rhythm Section
2.5 out of 5 stars.
Rated: R
Run Time: 109 minutes
Directed by Reed Morano
Starring Blake Lively, Jude Law, Sterling K. Brown, Richard Brake, Raza Jaffrey
Opens Friday, January 31
Three years later, Stephanie is so racked with grief that she has basically given up, turned to drugs and now works as a prostitute in a London brothel. That is, until one day when Proctor (Raza Jaffrey), a freelance journalist, seeks her out to tell her the flight was intentionally blown up as part of a terrorist plot to kill an outspoken young Islamic reformer, who also was on board.
Proctor is being funded by the reformer’s wealthy parents and he’s being fed intel by a mysterious former covert agent known only as “B,” whom he believes lives on a remote loch in Scotland. So far, “B” has provided him with enough information to track down the bomb maker, who is a college student in London.
Pop quiz, hotshots: What do you think happens next?
A) Stephanie says screw it, I like the drugs and remains a prostitute
B) Stephanie falls madly in love with Proctor and together they avenge the day
C) Stephanie does a lot of massively dumb shit that exposes Proctor and puts her on the run, alone, to Scotland
Of course, she goes to Scotland, after blundering her way through a naïve assassination plot against the bomb maker. And, of course, she meets “B,” who is played by Jude Law, who says things like, “You don’t know the scale of the mess you caused.”
“B” is former MI-6. He teaches Stephanie how to be a killer, which happens pretty quickly. He also teaches her about the…wait for it…rhythm section, which is spy speak for controlling your breathing and heart rate just before you kill somebody. According to “B,” your heart is the drum and your breathing is the bass.
“B” also tells her that in addition to the bomb maker, there’s the guy who facilitated placing the bomb on the plane and then there’s the architect of the whole plot, only his identity is unknown, so he gets called “U17,” as in unidentified person.
Before you know it, Stephanie is hopscotching across the globe, from Tangier to New York and back to London, pretending to be a female spy believed long dead, and somehow not getting herself killed.
All of this would be massively ridiculous and laughable if not for the fact that Lively transforms to such a degree that you start accepting that she might actually be capable of covert assassinations. By transform, I don’t mean she suddenly does a 180 and becomes Angelina Jolie in “Mr. & Mrs. Smith.”
Far from it.
Lively imbues Stephanie with an authentic sense of jittery, feral distrust that compliments her nihilistic pursuit of her family’s killers. Likewise, her defeated body language, her refusal to make eye contact and her ability to completely blend into any environment makes her oddly formidable.
Again, I cannot stress this enough, “The Rhythm Section” is not original, in the least. It’s also not action-packed. In fact, there’s very little in the way of bone-snapping, silencer-wielding, kickass spying happening at all.
And yet, it’s still enjoyable.
If you are looking for bombastic violence, go elsewhere.
If you are seeking a more authentic and brutal representation of how a fierce female operative is created, go watch “Hanna.”
But if you’re like me, and you’ve been casually intrigued by Lively’s maturation as an actor and her seeming fearlessness as far as her creative choices since leaving “Gossip Girl,” you should depart the theater feeling good about your decision to spend ten dollars to watch “The Rhythm Section.”
Thankfully, this ain’t “Peppermint.” And it’s a hell of a lot better than the bulk of the male-dominated spy flicks released of late (cough — “Mile 22” — cough).
And until Charlize gets serious about a "Blonde" sequel, this may be the best we have to make do.
John W. Allman has spent more than 25 years as a professional journalist and writer, but he’s loved movies his entire life. Good movies, awful movies, movies that are so gloriously bad you can’t help but champion them. Since 2009, he has cultivated a review column and now a website dedicated to the genre films that often get overlooked and interviews with cult cinema favorites like George A. Romero, Bruce Campbell and Dee Wallace. Contact him at Blood Violence and Babes.com, on Facebook @BloodViolenceBabes or on Twitter @BVB_reviews.
This article appears in Jan 30 – Feb 6, 2020.
