Hanna (2011)Starring: Saoirse Ronan; Eric Bana; Cate Blanchett; Tom Hollander; Olivia Williams; Jason Flemyng; John MacMillan; Tim Beckmann; Sebastian Hülk; Joel Basman; Sebastian Hülk.
Directed by: Joe Wright.
Colour/111 Minutes/R
16 year old Hanna (Saoirse Ronan) is raised in isolation in the Finnish wilderness by her father Erik (Eric Bana). All of her life she has been trained as a perfect assassin. Everything she knows of the outside world comes from Erik and the books they have in their home. She has been taught to speak in many languages and has been drilled with false back stories in order to protect her once she does step into the real world. One day Hanna is given the choice by Erik to press a button which will activate a transmitter. It will alert some specific people in the CIA to their whereabouts. She presses the button and her whole world changes. Erik leaves after giving Hanna instructions. Hanna is soon captured by a special forces team and is taken to a CIA safe house where it's revealed that CIA officer Marissa Wiegler (Cate Blanchett) is tasked with finding and killing Erik, and Erik has raised Hanna to kill Wiegler. After killing Wiegler's double (thinking it was the real deal), she escapes to find her father. The chase is on.
Hanna is a surprisingly well-done and effective mash up of spy, assassin and chase films, with a bit of European travelogue thrown in. Pale and willowy, Hanna is almost like an alien visitor to our world. Highly intelligent and inquisitive as she may be, she bumps up against a world far beyond what her father and his books have prepared her for. It's only the ruthless training she has had that manages to keep her one step ahead of those who seek to capture and kill her. There may be some sly jab at home-schooling there, but who knows.
Hanna is a believable character because, much like the protagonists in La Femme Nikita (1990) and Leon: the Professional (1994), there is a real person inside: she's not a comic book cut-out, who spouts bad-ass lines, like "Hit-Girl" from 2010's Kick-Ass. Hanna may be a trained killer but she's also an innocent young girl, coming into sexual maturity. Her ability to kill does not define her, her desire to connect and find a family and discover who she is does. As people who come in contact with her suffer, she soon realizes she must make her own decisions and find her own purpose.
Not to be outdone, there's the cold, professional, and highly determined Weigler. We discover as the film goes on just why she is so driven to kill Erik and Hanna. If they live, her past will come back to haunt her. She is highly amoral, but no doubt does not think of herself as so. In her mind this whole thing is all about damage control. Ends justify means. The more the situation spirals out of control, the more desperate actions she will take. Hired killers from outside her organization, illegal interrogations, and the ability to pull the trigger herself are all within her to do without a second thought. The major indication of the stresses she is under, in order to keep her outward appearance of control, comes out in her obsession with her dental hygiene. She'll cut her gums up if it means a perfect flossing. Nobody looks at the gums, just the teeth. She reminded me a lot of Tilda Swinton's character Karen Crowder from 2007's Michael Clayton. Although not quite equal to that, it's still a fine performance.
Some of the strange characters Hanna meets, including the vacationing family who sort of adopt her (and whose fate is left wisely unknown after Weigler catches them), and the freaky Germanic assassins Weigler employs, almost seem to skirt the line between realistic and comic book, but I think they work because we are sort of seeing them through Hanna's eyes. To her they are strange and because our sympathy lies with Hanna, we can accept them. The action scenes are not overdone to any extent that I said "oh, fuck off, that's stupid", and are well-staged. Hanna does eventually learn about who she is and why she is the way she is. Much of it is no surprise to anyone who has watched a movie or two, but these revelations are hardly the point. In the end, all that counts is that I liked Hanna, and because the film is mostly about her journey, I liked the film. A very worthy rental or buy.
8 comments:
Nicely written review. The movie was pretty light but I enjoyed the Chemical Brothers soundtrack.
Thanks very much for the comment. Yes, the film was not any sort of classic, but it worked, and that's something.
I loved Hanna! It was quite artsy, but in a god way, the cast was amazing and so was the story. Loved almost everything about it. Great review!
Nebukar>> Thank you, sir.
You don't know how much I hated this film. I couldn't work out what it was - some fantasy tale of a child murderer? I couldn't get my head round it. Remember how in Leon the Professional Matilda doesn't harm a fly? Hanna kills grown men - trained to kill grown men - at will.
Not my cup of 2 sugar tea. Your review made me consider for a moment. The next moment had me thinking of Eric Bana and Cate Blanchett. This was like a big budget Home & away.
AJaye>> I actually thought to myself a while back that you wouldn't like this one. I've seen some people compare it to a fairytale, although I did't pick up a lot on that other than the theme park she goes to and a few other brief elements. I personally didn't have a problem with the subject matter. I was comparing this to the international version of "Leon", btw. That one is a bit more "out there" in it's subject matter. Matilda is far less innocent.
Have you seen "Kick-Ass"? I have a feeling the character of "Hit Girl" in that film might make you head spin if "Hanna" bothered you that much. She's a cartoon character compared to Hanna, and not a very good one.
I think I saw the trailer to Kick Ass. Those things have the capacity to work in reverse. Having said that I did succumb to Sucker Punch. A friend wanted to watch it and I thought - Emily Browning. How bad could it be?
Actors are for hire. They don't care how bad it is so long as they get paid. To wit Michael Madsen.
I'm sure I've seen the int version of Leon on channel 4 years ago. There was more lasciviousness in it no? Still a great action flicker nonetheless.
I think Lee it's not so much the participants but it's the context. We've all heard of child soldiers. If a film was to be made of one of them in the vein of Nikita I'd watch it. If it was in the vein of Die Hard I'd curse it.
In other news you going to review Drive?
I can respect your reasons for not liking Hanna.
I want to see Drive. I've avoided reviews, but have caught on to the positive buzz. I'm just hoping it's not overly-hyped like Black Swan.
I will review it when it comes out on DVD. I live in a pretty rural, small-town sort of region, so I don't have much time to catch movies when they come out (that's if they manage to even screen around here).
Hey, how about The Thing's box office? I almost had a smile on my face seeing it tank before realizing Real Steel and the remake of Footloose are what stomped on it. There's still overseas markets and DVD, but I don't think it's going to be a cash cow.
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