Atomic Blonde
4 stars
Director: David Leitch
Stars: Charlize Theron, James McAvoy, John Goodman
Duration: 115 mins
Class: 12
KRS Releasing Ltd
Having clearly enjoyed her superlative scene-stealing stint as the warrior Furiosa in 2015’s Mad Max: Fury Road, Charlize Theron bursts into another action thriller, switching Furiosa’s fire and passion for the ice-cold persona of Lorraine Broughton, one of MI6’s most lethal agents.
The year in 1989, the Cold War is thawing, the Berlin Wall is about to come down and the city is buzzing with the anticipation of significant change; while the murky world of East-West espionage still simmers dangerously below the surface.
Broughton is sent to the city to retrieve important information obtained by a fellow agent who was subsequently assassinated… and she is also tasked to uncover the identity of a double agent known only as Satchel. Her contact in the city is MI6’s station chief, the eccentric and unpredictable David Percival (James McAvoy).
Yet, it is clear that someone somewhere is out to sabotage the mission, as Broughton’s cover is blown the minute she lands in the city. With the KGB, French intelligence and the CIA also keen to get their hands on the information, Broughton is in for an interesting, if deadly time.
If the action is seamless, the same cannot be said of the script
Preposterous though the whole exercise may be, Atomic Blonde is a great throwback to the spy thrillers that exploited the Cold War era so well. The production captures the period with remarkable attention to detail – ranging from the costumes (Theron rocks the best of what 1980’s fashion had to offer; McAvoy, sadly, pretty much the worst) to the neon lights that illuminate the bars and hotel rooms, highlighting the uncomfortable seediness of it all.
This is all underscored by a thumping soundtrack featuring, among a plethora of others, Bowie, Michael, Siouxsie, The Clash, Nena and the famous 99 Luftballons of course. Yet for all its escapist fantasy, you can’t help but take a sobering moment to note its timeliness, as the world seems to be on the brink of another, possibly deadlier Cold War with the US-North Korea relationship, such as it ever was, hitting rock bottom…
Director David Leitch keeps the action going relentlessly and breathtakingly violently as Broughton fights her way to the truth.
Whether in the confines of a car, in the street or an apartment building, she engages in hand-to-hand combat with one, four, or a dozen assailants with ruthless and consummate ease and uses guns, knives or anything available as weapons of destruction. For all the blood and violence, it is hard not to get caught up in the kinetic energy that drives these scenes.
If the action is seamless, the same cannot be said of the script, which does on occasion tie itself up in knots trying to keep up with all the crosses, double-crosses and triple-crosses that the genre often entails. However, to its credit, the script does offer up a surprise or two to keep the tension suitably taut.
In Broughton, Theron has created a formidable character who oozes sexuality, grit and ruthlessness. She marches to the beat of her own drum. She takes no nonsense from anyone, not even her immediate superior at MI6, Eric Gray (Toby Jones), nor his CIA counterpart Emmett Kurzfeld (John Goodman), and she has little time for the eccentricities of the clearly untrustworthy Percival. She’s a loner, her unchanging demeanour as ice-cold as the baths she takes to soothe her battered, beaten and bruised body before she heads off to the next part of the assignment – though she is not averse to the occasional bit of nookie to let off steam.
Theron makes the part her own, and is savvy enough not to project the character as merely an unfeeling fighting machine, but a complex woman who at brief, but intense, moments lets her guard down and shows a little emotion, This means that we care about her, even though she probably wouldn’t give a toss about our feelings.
McAvoy is clearly having a blast, hamming it up amusingly, and just the right side of OTT as Percival, whose actions keep you guessing about his true nature up to the very end.
Sofia Boutella’s sultry, petite, dark-haired French agent is the polar opposite to Broughton.
Eddie Marsan is an East German Stasi agent-turned-informer. He is a crucial part of Broughton’s investigation and she has to protect him against the onslaught of various East German and Russian assassins thrown their way.