Ava

 

Much of the time, espionage and mercenary films can and do overlap for reasons that there are deaths in both and become questionable in the motives of those characters in both films. "Ava" is one of those films that transcend from spying to killing, but this is the point with the characters in this. One small difference is the film does dwell on the mercenary's family and the complexities within.

Ava (Jessica Chastain) is a deadly mercenary who works for a black ops organization, traveling the globe and specializing in high profile hits. Ava's career takes a bad turn when a high profile job goes wrong due to faulty information provided to her. With a botched hit (as well as a track record for questioning the validity of her targets), Ava is told by her boss and mentor, Duke (John Malkovich) to take a hiatus until the heat blows over, but secretly the head of the organization, Simon (Colin Farrell), has ordered a hit on her to ensure nothing traces back to the company. With the recent death of her father, Ava decides to go back home to Boston and attempt to mend her relationship with her mother, Bobbi (Geena Davis) and and her sister, Judy (Jess Weixler), though the homecoming proves to be far from happy as the years of estrangement have created resentment. To complicate things further, Ava's ex-fiance, Michael (Common) is now in a relationship with Judy, and involved with an underground gambling ring that Ava knows all too well from her younger days. 

Others to round out the cast are Joan Chen as Toni, head of the gambling ring, Ioan Gruffudd as Peter and Diana Silvers as Camille.

This was grittily directed by Tate Taylor ("Pretty Ugly People" '08, "The Help" '11, "Get on Up" '14, "The Girl on the Train" '16, "Ma" '19) plus TV and a short. What I can appreciate with this director is that the projects he helms are all very different films in that they may be dramas, however there is a bite to the films is which he allows his actors to go where they need to go in order to enrich the character they are portraying. Such as the different characters in "The Help" was so delineated in order to convey to the audience what these characters were all about. This film is similar with Ava having so many layers to her character. This is effective directing. It was effectively written by Matthew Newton ("Right Here Right Now" '04, "Three Blind Mice" '08, "From Nowhere" '16, "Who We Are Now" '17). Whereas I realize that character development has to take place, this definitely took a while for the audience to really get into this story. Slow I understand, but when one starts looking at their watch, one must ask the question: where is this taking me? First of all, why the organization does not tell their cooperatives why they are assassinating their targets is all wrong. After a point, they have to start asking questions. Secondly, it was difficult to connect the hits that Ava was committing with the issues with her family. I thought this was going to be a total wash until about the second half of the film. Then, it started to pick up and actually kept you on the edge of your seat; the very thing that Newton was obviously attempting to convey. The stunts by Jeff Imada were intense and helped carry the pace of the film as well.

This film was obviously created for those 18-24 single males out there, and with that, they will love it. Stunts, deaths, double-crossing--all the elements for a younger audience to sink their teeth into. This was originally released on 9-25-20, so it never made to the screen due to the pandemic. So I purchased it so I could view it and critique it for you.

Out of 4 Stars: 2.5                                        Rated: R                                               96mins.