Two stars. Rated R, for strong violence, nudity, sexuality and relentless profanity
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 7.28.17
British author Antony Johnston
obviously grew up reading John Le Carré, because his 2012 graphic novel — The Coldest City, with moody art by Sam
Hart — is laden with the sort of spycraft that George Smiley would have
recognized: bleak cynicism, operatives known only by code names, squabbling
between Intelligence Agency factions, cut-outs, traitors and double-crosses.
 |
| It's just another day in the office for Lorraine Broughton (Charlize Theron), as she tries to prevent KGB thugs from reaching — and killing — the defecting East German intelligence officer under her protection. |
The story takes place in Berlin
in November 1989, immediately before and after East and West are unified. An
undercover MI6 agent is killed trying to bring invaluable information back to
the British: a list believed to identify every espionage agent working on both
sides of the wall. Veteran undercover operative Lorraine Broughton is sent to
Berlin, to retrieve the list and identify her colleague’s killer; her task is
complicated by the chaos of mass demonstrations calling for unification, while
KGB loyalists resist with increasing viciousness.
Definitely a hook on which to
hang a slick, thoughtful espionage saga.
Too bad director David Leitch and
scripter Kurt Johnstad didn’t see it that way.
They’ve essentially re-cast
2014’s loathsomely violent John Wick
with a female lead, and the briefest of nods to genre spycraft. (No surprise
there, since Leitch was an uncredited co-director on the first Wick.) The distinction is immediately
obvious with a name change — Atomic
Blonde — that more accurately reflects star Charlize Theron’s luminously
white hairstyle, and the luxuriously wild outfits that she wears so well: most
of them also vibrant white, with striking black accoutrements. Costume designer
Cindy Evans, take a bow.
The Berlin setting is persuasively
reproduced by production designer David Scheunemann; cinematographer Jonathan
Sela deserves equal credit for gritty street scenes, strobe-lit nightclubs and
shadow-laden noir tableaus. No question: This film looks terrific, and feels
like the ideal backdrop for cloak-and-dagger subterfuge.
But Leitch has no finer
sensibilities. His film is flashy trash: violent, tawdry and depressingly
nihilistic. Midway through this two-hour exercise in brutality, it becomes
impossible to keep track of who’s good, bad or in between; Johnstad’s script
keeps changing its mind, seemingly on every other page.
