Colombiana

It is a shame Luc Besson doesn't make movies anymore. He started out strong with Nikita and Leon and then I start to lose interest in his work as I look at his filmography. He has proven to be very successful as a writer and producer, but now it seems he is known more for the directors that work for his company and from his scripts. You have Louis Letterier (The Transporter, Transporter 2, Unleashed, The Incredible Hulk, Clash of the Titans, and the upcoming Now You See Me), Pierre Morel (District 13, Taken, From Paris with Love), and now with Colombiana it would be safe to include Olivier Megaton (Transporter 3, the upcoming Taken 2).

Besson was part of the Cinema du Look movement that clearly, as Wikipedia, puts it better than I could, favored "style over substance and spectacle over narrative." That being said, with films like Leon and I personally think with Unleashed and to an extent Taken, he would sometimes gather a good enough script and some great actors to help elevate what might just be some of the slickest cinematography by itself. Colombiana unfortunately falls on the "just-looks-good" side.

In fact, that is why I'm avoiding discussing the film and just talking about how much I can sometimes dig Besson and his protoges. So basically, Zoe Saldana plays a woman whose family is killed by a crime syndicate in Colombia (hey, that explains the title) so she goes and gets revenge. The first couple of action sequences are fun, but then it gets very repetitive. Thats pretty much it. Nothing to the movie, but that and some forced moments of what I guess was "emotion." I keep looking for something to say and I really don't have much else except "a hot girl fired some cool guns." Not a bad thing, but also not much of a good thing.

I feel like I should go watch Leon, The Killer, Ghost Dog, or the films of Melville or Kitano to really get something out of bullets and blood splatter.