Red Sparrow

Dominika, a former ballerina, has been trained in a spy school and has become a professional seductress. Now she is tasked with getting close to an American agent and discovering who in Russian intelligence is passing him information. But her mission is complicated by her superiors and perhaps her true feelings. Red Sparrow is a rather intimate spy thriller, and a bit too long. It tries to be sexy and provocative, most of the time it’s uncomfortably aloof, cold, and unnecessarily plodding. And not very entertaining. (27/07/2018)

The American take on the Russian state apparatus is compelling, delivered with respect, and most fans of gritty spy movies will find it to their liking. The secret services in Russia are portrayed as a power-hungry, hard and uncompromising hierarchy of alpha males and females, both decision-makers and enforcers; like a creeping silent force, insidious and yet mesmerizing. This is exactly what the agent, played by Jennifer Lawrence, tries to portray very ably. Another one of her bolder roles in a minimalist and quite raw film with a solid plot, a great modern "cold war" atmosphere and a couple of scenes of explicit violence. Only the hint of romance is a bit too much, but if you take it all as part of the plan, you can turn a blind eye to it. Matthias Schoenaerts is superb as always and Charlotte Rampling is to die for as a demonic teacher. (04/03/2018)

A spy thriller with a pleasantly old-school edit, in which it's not about action, but rather suspense, and who, whom, why and how it ends up transferring. I liked it, and both Jennifer Lawrence and Joel Edgerton in particular were great. But I especially have to highlight the James Newton Howard soundtrack - he was heavily inspired by Tchaikovsky and if his overture was played in a classical Russian music concert, probably few would think that it doesn't belong there. (24/03/2019)

Red Sparrow relate the tale of how a young ballerina, Jennifer Lawrence, became the best Russian spy overnight, of course after undergoing a training program for juvenile recruits at an ethically controversial Russian institute called “The Sex Games”. The movie is totally failed attempt at an atmospheric and refined cold-war thriller with a romantic storyline. A wannabe clever espionage drama where the chemistry between the Russian agent and her American counterpart is too feeble to serve as the movie’s sole foundation. It offers nothing else in its long runtime – neither thriller-like suspense nor action. With her baby face, Lawrence is the casting fuck-up of the year. Matthias Schoenaerts is the only one who gives a believable acting performance; he even looks like Putin! The music “inspired” by Goldsmith’s Basic Instinct is supposed to evoke a seductive sexual tone. The similarly conceived Atomic Blonde, which doesn’t pretend to be anything it’s not, is the clear winner here. (04/03/2018)

Too bad that so many of Jennifer Lawrence’s nude selfies "leaked" online, otherwise the film could have been saved by her nude scenes, but this way I was just bored. In the role of Dominika, she once again proved that her poker face can compare with the likes of Arnold Schwarzenegger, Ben Affleck and, after his cosmetic enhancements, Mickey Rourke. The film was full of clichés, my “favorite” one being how you can easily tell that Russians are the bad guys. The chief of military must wear leather boots, and anyone who would otherwise be in doubt, is suddenly clear. If espionage went the way it was shown in the film, the world would be much more fun. My takeaway from more than two hours of boredom - ballerinas are not what they seem to be. (08/09/2018)