The Rhythm Section

Starring: Blake Lively, Jude Law, Sterling K. Brown, Raza Jaffrey, Nasser Memarzia, Amira Ghazalla
Directed by: Reed Morano
Rating: R
Genre: Action, Drama, Mystery
2020

Times Seen:
Tim: 1

Summary: A woman (Blake Lively) decides to seek revenge on those who blew up a plane that killed her entire family.

Review:

Tim: It feels like there are a lot of points of failure in Reed Morano's The Rhythm Section. I'm only familiar with her work in directing a few episodes of The Handmaid's Tale. She may have some talent as a director, but not much of it showed up here. This is a movie that absolutely should have been better and it's odd that it feels so lackluster. I'll try to assess what I thought went wrong.

First off, Morano doesn't seem to have any fun with her story. I know this is a brutal film about a broken woman trying to pick herself up after her entire family was killed in a plane bombing by seeking vengeance on those responsible. It's not the lightest material, no. But, did the film have to be so joyless? The movie isn't necessarily too long at 1 hour, 49 minutes, but it's such an affair devoid of joy that it feels significantly longer. Morano directs the film like it's an assignment she didn't want. It's certainly not trying to be a blow 'em up action movie, but it seems to get stuck in the pits of the drama. The movie feels like an arthouse movie that compromised too much for mainstream appeal and it exists somewhere in the middle. It's way too boring to be much of a fix for action fans. It doesn't dig deep enough into its characters to subvert the genre. It's mostly just a forgettable movie that does a few things right and a lot of things wrong.

I've never been much of a Blake Lively fan. I just don't think she is a very talented actress. Now, I do appreciate what she tried to do here. This is a bit of an unexpected role and trying to cast herself in an action role is a bold move. I thought she was fine in the role. She embraces the dramatic side for sure and she does have some nice moments throughout the film. I don't think she established the kind of emotional connection she needed to with the audience. I was interested in her story, but I never really cared much. Still, I don't want to suggest she was bad, just not quite as strong as she needed to be.

The movie really picks up when Jude Law comes on screen. Some of this is the fact that Law's a talented actor and he immediately makes us interested in his mysterious character. Some of it is that the film hits its stride with the story that involves him. Indeed, this is when the film is at its best- the scenes where Law is training Lively's character are the best of the film. I had genuine fun watching those and I was interested to see her progression. This is where Morano shows some flashes of what she can do as a director. I was impressed. Now, this isn't to say these scenes are perfect- I still laugh thinking about the swimming scene. It was so badly constructed and explained. Maybe there was a logical reason for it, but the film doesn't set it up well at all. I just thought, "Why on earth is she doing this?" I understand the point it was trying to make for the movie, but it was a ridiculous sequence that Morano doesn't effectively set up. Outside of this, though, Law and Lively work well together and the movie starts to pick up momentum.

Sterling K. Brown was solid in his supporting role. He does come at a time when Lively's character transitions from training to the actual missions and it's a turn that doesn't work as well. I wasn't sold that this recent drug addict could do anything that she does on screen, even with a few months of training. This requires suspending so much disbelief, I just struggled with it. Morano tries to throw some bumps in along the way, but it wasn't quite convincing enough. The scenes of tracking down the terrorists feel overly obtuse.

As the film progressed and the flaws rack up, it becomes more and more apparent that it's hard to care about anything we're seeing on screen. The movie is never bad, but it's deeply lackluster. These kinds of movies have been done so many times before and we've gotten more than a few women-led revenge stories. We need more of those, but we need ones that are better than this. The Rhythm Section (it has a bad title, too) has a few strengths, but ultimately, the movie is completely forgettable. It doesn't do enough to stand on its own, it suffers from not having a clear and focused voice. It's a movie worth skipping.

Rating 1-10
Tim's Rating: 6



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