The Protégé (2021)
Directed by Martin Campbell
Rescued as a child by the legendary assassin Moody and trained in the family business, Anna is the world’s most skilled contract killer. When Moody, the man who was like a father to her and taught her everything she needs to know about trust and survival, is brutally killed, Anna vows revenge. As she becomes entangled with an enigmatic killer whose attraction to her goes way beyond cat and mouse, their confrontation turns deadly and the loose ends of a life spent killing will weave themselves ever tighter.
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4 films that influenced The Protégé
What critics say influenced The Protégé
Having already killed several men who attacked her parents, the girl was an even more natural underage sidekick than Natalie Portman’s precocious waif in The Professional .
So think The Professional and advance it a few decades.
If you like this, try: “The Professional,” “Gunpowder Milkshake,” and “The Transporter”…
To such female-fronted, “John Wick”-style assassin films such as “Atomic Blonde,” “Red Sparrow” and last month’s “Gunpowder Milkshake,” we can now add Martin Campbell’s “The Protege” with Maggie Q of “Nikita” and “Designated Survivor” in the lead female role.
The Protege may be lacking in the full-throated thrills we see from movies such as Nobody or The Equalizer , and it would have benefited with the added style we see from a movie like Atomic Blonde , but it has three actors bouncing off one another with their unique abilities, which goes a long way.
The script from writer Richard Wenk, whose muscular oeuvre includes the Denzel Washington “Equalizer” movies, a “Jack Reacher” and an “Expendables,” revisits the horrors Anna witnessed in the past but seems more interested in the perils she can escape in the present.
Wenk is responsible for multiple action films I have not liked, such as The Equalizer films and that forgettable Jack Reacher sequel.
“La Femme Nikita,” Tarantino’s “Kill Bill” movies, “Red Sparrow,” “Killing Eve”: Kipling’s “The female of the species is deadlier than the male” is their motto.
To such female-fronted, “John Wick”-style assassin films such as “Atomic Blonde,” “Red Sparrow” and last month’s “Gunpowder Milkshake,” we can now add Martin Campbell’s “The Protege” with Maggie Q of “Nikita” and “Designated Survivor” in the lead female role.