Angelina Jolie plays a woman with a tragic past who has to redeem herself. Shocking.
SUMMARY
Hannah Faber (Angelina Jolie) is a smokejumper in Montana who has recently been given a more laid-back post in a fire tower after several kids and a colleague in a bad jump. Her ex-boyfriend, Ethan (Jon Bernthal), is a deputy Sheriff whose brother-in-law, Owen (Jake Weber), is a forensic accountant. Unfortunately, Owen has recently found incriminating evidence against mob boss Arthur Phillip (Tyler Perry) and is now being hunted by Phillip’s assassins Jack and Patrick Blackwell (Aidan Gillen and Nicholas Hoult). After Owen is killed, his son, Connor (Finn Little), is found by Hannah and now the two must survive against the assassins, the elements, and a conflagration.
END SUMMARY
Ever seen a protagonist who is tortured by a recent tragic loss that coincidentally is thematically similar to something that happens to them in the film? I mean, have you ever watched a movie where the main character or one of the major characters has a tortured past that they bring up repeatedly and have to overcome? Oh, you haven’t? Well, then you should probably be aware that motion pictures exist and about one-third of them have that trope somewhere in there.
So much of this movie felt so very generic. We have predictable statements about Hannah no longer really caring about her safety because she’s depressed, a ton of expository dialogue, jokes that are so canned that I believe someone stored them for the Winter during the great depression, and a plot you could probably predict from 10 minutes in. It makes this film feel like an absolute slog, which is really sad because some elements of it are actually pretty great. While they completely wasted Angelina Jolie throughout much of the film by sticking her with cliched traits, other characters were actually pretty interesting. The assassin brothers, while they are both kind of stereotypical assassins, come to life when they’re interacting with each other. Honestly, it might just be leftover Littlefinger, but it felt like Aidan Gillen was a complete and utter magnificent bastard in this. He sells the gentleman killer role perfectly, as well as the more responsible brother. Then there’s Ethan’s pregnant wife, Allison, played by Medina Senghore, who manages to avert almost every expectation you’d have in this otherwise fairly paint-by-numbers film. She’s a badass without ever having to resort to any of the traditional “tough girl” traits you find in this kind of movie.
Overall, unfortunately, this just wasn’t worth the 100 minutes it takes to watch.
The Joker On The Sofa 