Hanna (2011)

Hanna (Saoirse Ronan) is a teenager raised in Finland and trained by her father (Eric Bana), an ex-CIA operative, to become a highly skilled assassin. But when she's sent on a deadly mission across Europe, Hanna takes to a French family and starts longing for a normal life. She must first solve the puzzle of her mysterious past, however.

Hanna is a great film that has a lot of things going for it.

Let’s start with its lead character, Hanna. She is electrifying to watch on screen. One minute she is a ruthless killer that scares the shit out of you, then the next she is a vulnerable child lost in a world that somehow scars her. There are moments of sheer brilliance in allowing you to see that the information she learned through books still wasn’t enough to prepare her from the new experiences this new world has thrown at her. There is one moment in particular, when she hears music for the first time, which puts her in a trance. Watching her become transfixed by simple tunes is fascinating because it is something that we hear every day. These moments are when the film is at its absolute best.

The action comes few and far between but when it is on screen, it’s hard not to lean up in your chair a bit. Whether it is Hanna taking out a group of armed guards in a matter of seconds, or the few fast paced chase scenes through a shipyard; you will find it very entertaining. They remind me of Jason Bourne style setups minus the shaky camera. These action scenes alone were good, but the score they mix into the scenes make them great. The beat was perfect with what they were going at; it got your blood pumping and held your attention. The Chemical Brothers just do a fantastic job in this department.

Despite everything that the film did well, it failed miserably in one of the most key spots; its villain. It is not that Cate Blanchet acted poorly, which she does not, but it simply falls into the matter of the character simply being boring. When her motives remained a mystery, she was intriguing to watch, but they reveal that mystery too early in the film. It is very cliché and makes the rest of her moves seem predetermined. Sometimes a villain can be a weak schmuck, it can add to the character. Here that simply does not work. Her Hanna’s father to train her for years to kill this character seemed far too much considering a simple walk into the apartment with a pistol would work just as well.

It is hard to believe that despite everything that was accomplished with this film can be so hampered because of one poorly written character, but sadly its falls true. What at times is a great action thriller ends up being just a decent flick with an interesting lead character. Watch the film if you would like, but don’t expect it to blow you away like I thought it would, it’ll only disappoint.

Overall Score: 6/10