1.5 OUT OF 4 STARS

Last night my lady and I went to check out COLOMBIANA on cheap Tuesday movies at the theatre near my house. I’ll start off by saying that this movie called my attention because Luc Besson is the co-writer and producer on it. For those who live under a rock, Besson is the man responsible for great films such as THE FIFTH ELEMENT, LA FEMME NIKITA and the cult classic LEON: THE PROFESSIONAL (the film that put Natalie Portman on the map).

Besson hasn’t directed anything live action (that I know of) since THE MESSENGER, the Joan of Arc movie. However, he has been sitting on the producer chair for tons and tons of films in the last 10 years. Most of them are shit but there are the few like TAKEN and THE TRANSPORTER that actually break through.

So knowing that I wasn’t expecting much but I was hoping for 90 minutes of entertainment like I did during THE TRANSPORTER. The plot is a simple revenge story of a little Colombian girl whose cartel working Father gets wacked by the boss. Along with his entire family, but not before the little girl escapes and grows up to be a bad ass assassin. Here lies the opening of the film, which supposedly takes place in Bogota, Colombia. The thing is, I’ve been to Bogota and it looks nothing like that. In fact, I think it was shot in Tijuana Mexico.

But that’s okay, this is a Hollywood film targeted to a North American audience. But this entire 15 minute scene is taking place in South America, why the fuck is everyone speaking English?… it is at this point that the movie failed to engage me. I mean seriously is only 15 minutes, why not do Spanish with English subtitles, this will allow me to immerse myself more in the story.

The film does a good job with the action scenes, there’s some stealth, high impact hits and lots and lots of bullets, no complaints there. Unfortunately there’s no substance, very much like the wost and more painful SUCKER PUNCH, this film can’t wait to arrive at it’s next action scenario. I don’t think the writers give a fuck about what goes on in between, character driven plot was not a goal here.

I think the lead of the film was cast perfectly, Zoe Saldana does a fantastic job. She can be very believable on screen and still perform the action sequences, all while keeping her sex appeal. Yes, I do think she’s sexy. As for the rest of the cast they’re mostly supportive individuals and the main villain was an okay choice but I don’t think he was given the proper chance. I’ve said it before, good action movies requires a good bad guy.

The villain in this film is played by Jordi Mollá. A talented Spanish actor that usually gets typecast, you might recognize him from the movie BLOW where he plays opposite Johnny Depp as the Colombian partner that betrays him. However, I’ve seen Jordi played a really good character in the Spanish thriller Nobody Knows Anybody, which I do recommend.

Overall COLOMBIANA deserves a rental or a free download at best. It sucks to see a talented actress like Zoe Saldana waste her time on something like this. I mean the film had the potential to be something really cool, but it failed to engage me. I hope Luc Besson has some better projects lined up in his roster because this one is not getting anymore attention from me.