Plot
A young woman, after witnessing her parents' murder as a child in Bogota, grows up to be a stone-cold assassin.
Release Year: 2011
Rating: 6.2/10 (26,567 voted)
Critic's Score: 45/100
Director:
Olivier Megaton
Stars: Zoe Saldana, Michael Vartan, Callum Blue
Storyline A young woman grows up to be a stone-cold assassin after witnessing her parents' murder as a child in Bogota. She works for her uncle as a hitman by day, but her personal time is spent engaging in vigilante murders that she hopes will lead her to her ultimate target - the mobster responsible for her parents' death.
Writers: Luc Besson, Robert Mark Kamen
Cast: Zoe Saldana
-
Cataleya Restrepo
Jordi Mollà
-
Marco
Lennie James
-
Ross
Amandla Stenberg
-
Cat - 10
Michael Vartan
-
Danny Delanay
Cliff Curtis
-
Emilio Restrepo
Beto Benites
-
Don Luis
Jesse Borrego
-
Fabio
Cynthia Addai-Robinson
-
Alicia
Angel Garnica
-
Pepe
Ofelia Medina
-
Mama
Callum Blue
-
Steven Richard
Sam Douglas
-
William Woogard
Graham McTavish
-
Head Marshall Warren
Charles Maquignon
-
Sergeant Bill Attwood
Opening Weekend: €174,369
(Belgium)
(31 July 2011)
(33 Screens)
Gross: $36,665,854
(USA)
(30 October 2011)
Technical Specs
Runtime:|
(unrated version)
Did You Know?
Trivia:
The film will be skipping theaters in Australia and heading straight to DVD and Bluray in early 2012.
Goofs:
Miscellaneous:
In the credits "Prosthetics" is misspelled as "Prostetics" in one section.
Quotes:
[repeated line, from trailer]
Emilio Restrepo:
Never forget where you came from.
User Review
Your run-of-the-mill EuropaCorp action flick
Rating: 7/10
If there is one French director the non-French general public knows
about, it's Luc Besson. Even if the name means nothing to you, chances
are you've heard of the films he's had a hand in. Among his most famous
films are Léon: The Professional (which introduced American audiences
to Jean Reno and Natalie Portman), Nikita (which has been remade into
an American film and two American TV shows so far) and The Fifth
Element (which nearly 15 years later remains one of the most famous
science-fiction films as well as one of the 10 most expensive French
films).
At the dawn of the new millennium, Besson started his own production
company, EuropaCorp, which in the last ten years or so has funded its
fair share of diverse movies, both in the French and English language.
Nevertheless Europa (as it's known in short) is best known to mass
audiences for its numerous, high-octane, medium-budget action films,
most of which are written or co-written by Besson himself (often with
Karate Kid screenwriter Robert Mark Kamen). Among these are the Taxi,
Transporter and District B13 series of films, Wasabi, Taken, From Paris
With Love, Danny The Dog (also known as Unleashed), Bandidas, Kiss Of
The Dragon, Yamakasi, Crimson Rivers 2, Hit-man,... Through these
films, Besson is also responsible for introducing the world to Parkour,
which seems to have taken over action cinema in the past 5 years (and
even making its way to films such as Step Up 3D).
Colombiana is another product from Besson's action film factory. The
story starts in 1992 in Bogota, where some mob guy, Don Luis, orders a
hit against a former associate of his who he considers has betrayed
him, and naturally his whole family. Only young Cataleya Restrepo
escapes the bloody shootout during an intense Parkour chase (what
else?), and manages to reach her uncle in Chicago, to whom she swears
that she'll become a hit-man and avenge her family. Fast-forward and
enter Zoe Saldana as adult Cataleya as the rest of the film takes
place, strangely enough, in 2007. With her uncle's help, Cataleya has
indeed grown up to be an awesomely skilled contract killer, having
performed 22 jobs in 4 years. However, she signs each of her kills with
a message destined for her real prey, making her one of the FBI's most
wanted. When the FBI decides to divulge her "serial killer" status, Don
Luis and his men know what's up, and all hell breaks loose.
Much has been said of the film's similarity with Besson's Léon and
Nikita, with many people musing that the film could just have well have
been a sequel to Léon with Natalie Portman's character all grown-up and
kicking butt (something fans have been dreaming about for years). Now I
haven't seen Nikita, but while there are similarities between Léon's
Mathilda and Colombiana's Cataleya, the two films are definitely not on
the same level. Colombiana is really your typical, run-of-the-mill
Besson action production, which is really not a bad thing. It is not in
the top-tier of these films (where I place films such as Taken and
Danny The Dog), but still a perfectly entertaining romp.
Viewers concerned with director Olivier Megaton due to the perceived
lack of action in Transporter 3, his previous film, need not be
concerned. The action here is almost non-stop, pretty much to the
detriment of plot. While the story has potential and could make for a
film with a lot more depth, whatever plot is here is minimal to the
max, recycled, cliché and basically a hodge-podge of all previous
hit-man/revenge/on-the-run-from-the-law films you've ever seen. There
is absolutely zero character development whatsoever and if you didn't
know that Cataleya's parents were murdered by Don Luis, you would have
no idea why any of the characters are doing what they're doing. I'm not
exaggerating, the Transformers films, heavily criticized for this
reason, have more character development.
But lack of plot depth isn't really a negative here. More depth would
have certainly made it a better film, but Colombiana is still
entertaining as a simple, straightforward, "dumb" B action flick. Like
all EuropaCorp films, production values are top-notch. The expected
Parkour chase is kept fresh by having it unfold with a child. Zoe
Saldana gives a great physical performance and spends a great deal of
time flitting in and out of vents and the various hits shown in the
film are all quite cool. The other actors also do fine, though Michael
Vartan's character has very little purpose and is actually barely in
the movie. Also this might be the only movie you'll ever see in which
toothbrushes are used as weapons.
In short, know what to expect from Colombiana (which literally means
Colombian woman by the way), and you'll enjoy it fine. It's a
straight-up action movie, no more, no less, very low on plot, high on
action, that falls straight into the heap with the scores of other
similar Besson-produced films, though it doesn't possess the touches of
humor that most of his other productions have. In comparison to the
other hit-man movies of the year, it's superior to The Mechanic, but
way inferior to Hanna (though it contains a lot more action than Hanna,
which shouldn't be seen as an action film). This is no Léon: The
Professional 2, fans can keep hoping that Besson and Portman work that
one out at some point (interestingly, Megaton is first in line to
direct if that movie does happen).
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