I liked Colombiana, a film that bears the mark of Luc. Luc Besson, of course. Although he is not directing this film, he wrote the script and produced it, and more important infiltrated into it some of the stylish and cynical touch which is characteristic to his best films. By providing a feminine character that descends from comics (Laura Croft comes to mind in many of the sequences) with a realistic life story and placing choreographic and well directed action scenes in the dire atmosphere of the drug wars Besson took a bet. A bet which he won with the help of a not so experimented director (Olivier Megaton), which makes me believe that his hand may have been also behind the directing exercise as well.
source www.imdb.com/title/tt1657507/
The first few minutes prepare the ground by showing how the parents of pre-teen girl Cataleya are murdered in her native Colombia and how she finds the way to the US, to find her uncle, a more than honorable mobster in Chicago and achieve the dream of becoming a professional killer to revenge the parents’ death. 15 or so years later she has become that killer and has more than 20 corpses in her CV, just that all of these are bag guys which she kills just to draw the attention of her object of revenge. All these seems very unrealistic and so they are – pure comics stuff. However this film is much more than a comics-inspired action film.
(video source SonyPictures)
Part of the reason Colombiana works can be found in the excellent rendition of the environment and the careful build-up and precise acting of the supporting characters. I especially liked the one of the FBI agent played by Lennie James, an actor used much and well in TV series (Jericho was one of them). The best acting however belongs without doubt to Zoe Saldana. The greenish thin girl from Cameron’s Avatar used here her real face and body and all is to the benefit of the viewers. The combination of the incredible (the hero, the action scenes) and credible (the accurate landscape and social environment, a script line that makes sense) works well, and I need to credit again Besson for making sure all corners are carefully rounded. The ending leaves hope for a sequel, and I hope rumors about Colombiana 2 are true. There are rumors also about Avatar 2. As I know Hollywood there are chances for both sequels to come to reality, and for once it would not be a bad thing.