Tuesday, 22 August 2017

Don't shoot, I've got your shoe! (Atomic Blonde 2017)

 
 
 
132.
Atomic Blonde
 
 
 
 
8/10
 
 
 
It's been a long time since I've seen a movie about a woman kicking ass and this trailer, along with its music left me wondering what was in store. The trailer has John Goodman's character talking about not being able to trust anyone, which without doubt means that there will be some sort of betrayal within the storyline. My guess will that it will either be Goodman's character himself or the more likely option of James McAvoy's character. Some behind the scenes stories showed plenty of injuries whilst filming and although it's based on a graphic novel, Charlize Theron spent five years getting this project in motion. Let's hope that this film is a natural, rather than a simple, botched peroxide blonde.
East Berlin in 1989 and a spy is running through the streets, whilst being chased by a car. James Gascoigne is soon caught and crushed between two cars and the guy chasing him, Yuri Bakhtin, gets out of his car before shooting Gascoigne point blank after asking him for some 'list'. He retrieves a watch of the body and the dumps it into the water. So far there's been some interesting features to the visuals and sounds. Each location and time is being spray painted onto the screen and as some 80's music plays, its loud until the first car pulls up at the kill seen and then we can hear the song from the car radio. This almost acts as if we are the driver the whole time. It's now 10 days later and Charlize Theron's character, Lorraine Broughton is lying in a bath tub of ice. She's completely naked, even after she gets out and this is to show the audience how battered, bruised and cut she is. Finally dressed, she heads into the office for a debrief of her latest mission with her superior Eric and a CIA agent Emmett. She isn't too happy about the CIA agent but behind the two-way mirror are more and the MI6 head, Chief C. Since the murder, everyone had been searching for the 'list', which it turns out contains information on Soviet field agents within Western Europe. The two debriefing Lorraine let her know that Gascoigne was betrayed by someone called Conrad Satchel. I knew there was some sort of betrayal.
Instant flash back and we have Lorraine sitting in an office with Chief C and Eric, a day after the murder and she is next to step foot in Berlin to get The List, kills satchel and escape back. She is to meet with her contact, Percival, who is played by James McAvoy. It looks like this movie is based around the debriefing. Once Percival is mentioned, she heads to Berlin and see him in an outside, illegal bar where he meets Spyglass, a Stasi officer. This guy has information for Percival about The List but needs to escape the country in exchange. The party gets broken up by the police and everyone scatters, leaving the deal up in the air. The next day and a KGB arms dealer has caught some of the party goers, questioning them about seeing Spyglass, but not before a bit of torture. With a few hits, the blood lands on the actual camera/screen. Lorraine has made it to Berlin but is picked up by two undercover KGB agents instead of Percival. She quickly knows this and bursts into action, causing the car to crash and Percival finally catches her up, when is upside down in the car. He joins her on her mission but she is also being watched by an unknown brunette in the distance.
Her stay in Berlin so far has led her to meet up with a German ally of MI6, The Watchmaker. He gives her the information to go to Gascoigne's flat and she lets Percival know that she is on her way there, to which he responds that they weren't. She gets there and finds a picture of him with Percival. Soon though, a few policemen arrive. The place looks like it has already been ransacked, to look for The List. These policemen look as if they are on someone's pay roll because they instantly set about to kill her. Some decent fights scenes take us through a few minutes, with fists flying and some wire for strangling, she ends with using it to swing out of the window and finally escape, even with it wrapped around an officer's neck. We are back in the debriefing, as Lorraine mentions that it could have been Percival who sent the men, he was the only one who knew where she was going. That night she heads to a bar, where the KGB arms dealer tries it on with her, but she's saved by the brunette from earlier, who acts as her friend. Delphine is her name and she's a right looker. Played by Sofia Boutella, Lorraine is suspicious of her intentions and after confronting her in a corridor, the two begin to actually get it on. A sex scene with the two woman ends with both lying in bed, with Delphine revealing that she is a French undercover agent, on the case of who Satchel is.
Back at The Watchmaker's and Bakhtin, the guy from the first murder, is back on the scene and looking for a buyer of the watch he has found. Inside the watch is The List. As he leaves, Percival is approached by him, with the watch in hand but instead of a normal transaction, Percival dries an ice pick through his forehead and takes the watch for himself. He reads the list and now has all of the power. So, I was right? Or is he going to give it over? Delphine has been seen taking photos of Lorraine to, so is she in on it too?
Lorraine now meets with another guy in the East side of Berlin, disguised as a brunette herself. The guy is called Merkel and has the inside knowledge of many things and will be used to help Spyglass get across the border and into safety. The meeting ran late though as she was followed across the border by the main KGB agents working with the arms dealer. Inside a cinema, there is another few scenes of fighting, until she can finally escape and meet with her own contact, Merkel. Lorraine's room is filled with neon lights and along with the music, it really sets the mood for the time period of the film. Percival puts Lorraine in touch with Spyglass and the two make a plan to get him across the border. It involves them all, along with his family, joining a protest down the streets and ending with some fake passports. They have passports made there and then, which would raise a little suspicion as the holders are all wearing the same clothes as their passport photos. In the window are KGB, scoping out to take a few shots in order to kill Lorraine and Spyglass. She knows there is a mole in the group so adds a surprise as all of the people put up some black umbrellas, blocking the killer's views. Percival is quick to point out that he wasn't involved in this idea, just before shots are fired from a window, miss and Lorraine takes Spyglass through the crowd. Percival turns and fires a bullet at him, and succeeds. Finally, he's made a move and proved me right. The under-pressure pair make it into a nearby building. Again, we see a lot of fighting and gun slinging and this is probably the best in the film. Staircase scenes and into rooms, she fighting using all sorts of things, nearly everything apart from the kitchen sink. There was even a portable stove top. It spills out onto the streets and into a car chase. It includes gun shots once more but more music too, which disappears after a crash but returns once again once a bullet flies through the window. Lorraine and Spyglass are both send into a river and although she tries to help him, a trapped Spyglass sinks with the car, along with her information on The List, which he had memorised. She makes it back to her apartment, wondering how this all went down and finds a French 'bug' inside her coat, which had been listening to everything she had done. Was Delphine in on this all of the time? Delphine herself knows this now too and phones Percival, knowing of his motives. She had been photographing him with Gascoigne and later, with the KGB arms dealer. He turns up at her place and even though she puts up a fight, stabs him in the shoulder and knocks him back, he still gets the better of her and strangles her to death. Lorraine turns up too late, simply to find the body and move on to Percival's place, which he has started to burn down. His recordings of Lorraine talking are playing and all along he had hidden a 'bug' inside his plaster cast on his wrist. He has already waked outside to a celebrating Berlin that has declared it shall knock down its dividing wall. He breaks the forth wall, which is rare for the movie and tries to tie up loose ends about betrayal. She catches up with him, declaring that he is Satchel and plants a bullet in his head. She now has The List and we return to the debriefing, where she presents the pictures and audio recordings to prove that he was a traitor. Eric Gray closes the case when she admits she no longer knows where The List is.
Three days after the meeting and Lorraine is in Paris to meet with the arms dealer, with the false intent of giving him The List. He knows that she isn't who she says she is and instantly calls her out on it. His men surround her but end up on the losing end as she brings out a gun and blows them away. She leaves the dealer until the end, drops her British accent for her true American one and reveals that she was Satchel all along. With him dead, she leaves as the triple agent for the CIA as the film finishes with the song Under Pressure, representing just how much weight was on her shoulders. She gets onto a plane with the CIA agent from the debriefing, who calls her out on her calling him names at the beginning, knowing they were in it all together from the start.
The end of this movie was fast paced and crazy to keep up with but we got there in the end. I felt that this movie had a much better story line compared to the John Wick films, which got boring for me half way through, but that could be just the Keanu Reeves effect. It kept you guessing. This film was sexy, action packed, music filled and represented the decade it was set in, in a way that brought forward it's most recognisable features. Anyone who loves a high octane, action movie, will enjoy this female spy hit.

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