Ava

Starring: Jessica Chastain, John Malkovich, Common, Colin Farrell, Geena Davis, Jess Wexler, Ioan Gruffudd, Diana Silvers
Directed by: Tate Taylor
Rating: R
Genre: Action, Drama
2020

Times Seen:
Tim: 1

Summary: A deadly assassin (Jessica Chastain) is forced to fight for her survival when her agency turns on her.

Review:

Tim: Netflix has been putting out a series of generic action movies and Ava is one of the most generic. Tate Taylor's film isn't exactly bad, but it's horribly redundant. It rips ideas and themes from far better movies and packages them together in an uninspiring combination. I suppose the movie is okay, but it's forgettable and more weak than anything. It's a movie I wish I'd skipped.

From the very beginning, the film takes a paint-by-numbers approach. Jessica Chastain's Ava is a deadly assassin, but she routinely breaks protocol to ask her victims what they did that was so bad. It's an action meant to humanize her, because while she's deadly, she's a good person (of course she is). Through a series of events that I guess sort of make a little sense, her agency decides to kill her. Honestly, watching this movie, I was struck by how ridiculous this whole scenario is. It's incredibly overplayed. How many movies have we seen where the assassin just wants to retire quietly, but their assassin agency won't let them. It makes no sense. Why wouldn't these agencies just let their assassins go? It always ends badly. It's always the best assassin, too. So you have a bunch of less talented killers trying to kill the most talented one. Maybe this premise never works, but other movies have sold it significantly better. Here, the whole thing just feels incredibly stupid. It sinks the entire film and every moment feels tarnished by this lack of effectiveness of the script.

This really does hurt the viewing experience, because early on, it was hard to care about anything happening on screen. It all felt so bland, like taking a street you've traveled down thousands of times before. The movie offers nothing new, no reason to get invested in the story. It plays out pretty much exactly as you would expect and it telegraphs the whole story early on. Quite frankly, the whole thing feels like a waste of time.

If there's a redeeming quality, it's that the movie assembles a solid cast at least. They aren't given effective things to say or do, but there's certainly talent involved here. I like Jessica Chastain and I suppose she works well in the lead role. Her performance is somewhat saddled by the script, but Chastain works well in these kinds of roles. She comes across as intelligent and tough enough to be mostly believable as this deadly assassin. It's always a plus when you have a strong female lead like this, so the movie gets some credit for not just giving us a generic white man in this role. There's no doubt that the movie was better because of Chastain in the lead. John Malkovich works wonders in his supporting role. Malkovich is an excellent actor and his character emerges as one that you almost have some feelings for (almost is as close as this movie can get). I enjoyed him in this role and while I didn't love his performance, it's effective. Colin Farrell was decent as the antagonist. He's too good an actor for a movie like this, though. He doesn't have a lot to do for most of the movie, before inexplicably getting involved himself at the end (which I just didn't buy, as it made no logical sense). Common continues to be generic (a common performance, you might say). He didn't do anything bad, but he did nothing that excited me. Geena Davis was completely wasted in a pointless role. I liked seeing Ioan Gruffudd, but also felt badly that his career has fallen down to one-scene performances like this one. As a whole, there's more to like about the cast than not, and it represents one of the stronger parts of this film.

Ava is another critical failure for Netflix. They just can't seem to get action movies right. It also does make you start to believe that Tate Taylor is an overrated director. His best film, The Help has been rightly criticized in recent years and has lost a lot of shine from its original high-praise. His other films have been middling at best. This might be his worst film (Ma is close). It's another disappointment for Netflix.

Rating 1-10
Tim's Rating- 6



If You Enjoyed This Movie, We Recommend: The Bourne Identity, Gemini Man, Hitman