Sasha Luss
“ANNA” My rating: B- (Netflix)
118 minutes | MPAA rating: R
“Anna” is a guilty pleasure, delivering just enough cheese/sleaze to satisfy a viewer’s baser instincts but wrapping it all up in a clever storytelling style that keeps us on our toes and guessing.
I didn’t realize until watching the final credits that this spy thriller was written and directed by French icon Luc Besson…but I should have guessed. “Anna” is basically a remix of Besson’s 1990 hit “La Femme Nikita.”
Both films center on a young woman recruited by a spy agency and trained as a ruthless assassin specializing in seduction and mayhem.
This time around our heroine is the Russian orphan Anna (Sasha Luss), a loner who becomes one of the KGB’s most relentless killers while working as a fashion model in Paris. Besson’s plot finds her undertaking a host of dangerous missions, often disguised by wigs.
What’s intriguing is the film’s structure. After each kill the film flashes back to reveal that what we assumed about the mission was in fact wrong, that there were hidden intentions and meanings that shot right by us. With this setup what might otherwise be just a series of violent encounters instead triggers jaw-dropping revelations.
The supporting cast ain’t bad, either. “Anna” counts two Oscar winners on its roster: Helen Mirren is a delight as the chain-smoking cynical Russian spymaster who controls Anna’s life; Cillian Murphy is a CIA agent who tries to turn our girl to America’s interests. And Luke Evans is just fine as the Anna’s field handler.
I was initially unimpressed by Luss’s turn as Anna…pretty but vacant. Over time, though, one realizes that Anna is playing a long con on everyone…the Russians, the Americans and especially the audience. She’s revealing to each of these demographics only enough about herself to keep her plans in play.
Smart girl.
Hans Zimmer
“HANS ZIMMER: HOLLYWOOD REBEL”My rating: B (Netflix)
60 minutes | No MPAA rating
Checking out composer Hans Zimmer’s IMDB page is pretty mind-boggling. The two-time Oscar winner has scored some of the seminal films of the last 40 years:
“Gladiator,” “Dune,” virtually all of Christopher Nolan’s movies, “Thelma & Louise,” “A League of Their Own,” “The Lion King,” “Muppet Treasure Island,” “The Thin Red Line,” the “Mission: Impossible” franchise, “Black Hawk Down,” “The Last Samurai,” “The Da Vinci Code,” “The Pirates of the Caribbean” franchise, “Kung Fu Panda,” “12 Years a Slave,” “Hidden Figures,” “Blade Runner 2049,” “Dune,” “Top Gun: Maverick.”
Not to mention a ton of documentaries and a little TV show called “The Simpsons.”
Francis Hanly’s “Hans Zimmer: Hollywood Rebel” can’t really explain Zimmer’s astonishing productivity and creativity (“superhuman” doesn’t seem too hyperbolic), but it does provide in a neat, one-hour session an intriguing overview of the man’s life and career.
What struck me most about the German-born Zimmer’s work is his reliance on atmosphere and rhythm over melody. Some of my favorite movie scores (Jerry Fielding’s work on “The Wild Bunch,” for example) are less about delivering tunes than creating a sonic background reflecting the emotional tenor of the scene.
This is what Zimmer does so well, often working alone at a keyboard/synthesizer to create sonic landscapes that only later are performed by a full orchestra (or not…Zimmer excels at mimimalist arrangements as well).
The man appears to be unflaggingly good natured, if dangerously obsessive about his work. His grown children describe him as an absentee father, though in recent years he’s been working to make up for lost time.
His coworkers and the directors he’s composed for — James L. Brooks, Stephen Frears, Ron Howard, Barry Levinson, Steve McQueen, Christopher Nolan, Denis Villeneuve, etc. — can’t wait to team up with him again and again.
Kingsley Ben-Adir
“BOB MARLEY: ONE LOVE” *My rating: B (Apple+)
107 minutes | MPAA rating: PG-13
I never saw “Bob Marley: One Love” in the theater. This may have been an OK thing, since I would have missed half the dialogue, which is delivered in a thick Jamaican/Rasta patois.
So let’s hear a round of applause for streaming service captioning.
Reinald Marcus Green’s film (it was written by Terence Winter, Frank E. Flowers and Zach Baylin) is essentially hagiographic, but still compelling.
We get the essentials on Marley’s brief but impactful life…his conflicts over the white father he never knew, his Jamaican nationalism (during the violent 1976 national election he was the target of an assassination attempt), his embracing of Rastafarianism (if you’re going to go whole hog into religious silliness, that’s the coolest option), his prodigious ganga consumption.
Marley is played by Brit actor Kingsley Ben-Adir, who doesn’t resemble Marley all that much but who nails his body language and stage presence. Lashanda Lynch is fine as his wife and backup singer Rita Marley (and she has a terrific third-act eruption confronting her husband over his infidelities).
But the real star of the show is the music itself. It’s just one damn great song after another; Marley was reggae’s greatest tunesmith and lyricist, laying down spectacularly produced tracks that are yet to be equalled.
| Robert W. Butler
Butler's Cinema Scene 