Atomic Blonde (2017)
Directed by David Leitch
An undercover MI6 agent is sent to Berlin during the Cold War to investigate the murder of a fellow agent and recover a missing list of double agents.
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30 films that influenced Atomic Blonde
What critics say influenced Atomic Blonde
Take, for instance, a scene where Lorraine makes mince meat of a Russian henchman's face behind the screen of a movie theater playing Andrei Tarkovsky's "Stalker."
The film serves up these bravura moments in entertainingly different ways — sometimes with an artsy backdrop (Lorraine battles in a movie theatre while Tarkovsky’s Stalker plays on a large screen behind her), and other times with a gripping simplicity, like when she has to journey through a seemingly abandoned building, shooting and punching her way to safety.
In a debriefing room at MI-6, she narrates the events of the preceding week to a British handler (Toby Jones) and a guest from the CIA (John Goodman): She is sent to West Berlin to recover a list of Western agents called, er, “the List”; makes contact with the punk-rock local station chief, Percival (James McAvoy), who has a side business selling Jordache jeans to East Berliners; stabs thugs at a screening of Andrei Tarkovsky’s Stalker ; and has a fling with a rookie French intelligence agent, Delphine (Sofia Boutella).
It ain’t art, either, even if Lorraine does fight a few villains in silhouette against a Berlin movie screen playing Andrei Tarkosky’s “Stalker.”
There’s one fight sequence where Lorraine takes on a bad guy in front of a movie screen showing Andrei Tarkovsky’s Stalker, which will give a nice laugh to cinephiles like me.
Here, his more pretentious reference is to Tarkovsky (Broughton fights a bunch of henchmen at a screening of Stalker), and there is the suggestion that collapsing, nightmare-ish East Berlin has become like Stalker’s zone: a lawless, borderless place that allows people to live out their desires, to find their true selves — for better or for worse.
In Atomic Blonde , Charlize and her adversaries finish fights wheezing, staggering around covered in blood, spit, and snot — like Patricia Arquette and James Gandolfini’s bathroom fight in True Romance .
“John Wick” is a touchstone here (Leitch was “Wick’s” uncredited co-director), and there are several visual homages to “True Romance.”
Atomic Blonde at times resembles an extended 1980s music video, and there’s an era-specific movie homage: the white trench coat and shades Theron wears in one sequence recalls Michael Caine’s lethal cross-dresser from Dressed to Kill .
It’s a sly nod to a similar scene in Alfred Hitchcock’s “Foreign Correspondent.”
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She mostly reminded me of Milla Jovovich in the Resident Evil series .
He’s positioned the film as Tinker, Tailor via La Femme Nikita with a peppering of No Way Out, but it doesn’t quite gel.
And then there’s David Bowie’s “Cat People (Putting Out Fire),” on which there should have been a moratorium following Quentin Tarantino’s masterful use of the song in “Inglourious Basterds.”
Some beats land better than others, though: David Bowie’s theme from Cat People might have played better if it didn’t immediately conjure up images of Quentin Tarantino’s similar cue in Inglourious Basterds.
Now, Charlize Theron bestows upon us a new and equally riveting action icon, playing the sexy and unstoppable MI6 agent Lorraine Broughton in stunt-man turned director David Leitch’s follow-up to “John Wick,” the eye-popping and enthralling “Atomic Blonde.”
Atomic Blonde is an easy sell: It’s Charlize Theron in a stylish thriller from one-half of the directing duo behind John Wick .
This time, she’s teamed with John Wick director David Leitch to create a spy thriller with equal parts Cold War intrigue and ‘80s synth pop.
The first solo effort by “John Wick” co-director David Leitch, “Atomic Blonde” exists in the same realm of hyperstylized action built around the cold ferocity of an unstoppable action star.
Despite director David Leitch’s ties to Keanu Reeves, Atomic Blonde is no Lady John Wick.
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The main hook — there’s a guy who has a list of every CIA and MI6 operative working undercover in the field — is lifted straight from the first Mission: Impossible movie, much of the narrative lacks clarity and the bad guys are standard issue Eastern Eurotrash heavies.
What worked for Mission: Impossible and Skyfall can work just as fine here.
Even James McAvoy’s playful turn as David Percival (picture James Bond if he went AWOL and watched Fight Club too many times) can’t help but feel like a distraction while we’re waiting for Lorraine to pummel the next unsuspecting KGB goon.
Stuntman (“Fight Club,””300”) turned director (he had a hand in “John Wick”) David Leitch proves he was the right guy for the job with every furious blast of onscreen mayhem.
He’s trying to sell Fight Club-era Brad Pitt, but no one’s buying.