Hanna - Movie review

Dir: Joe Wright Cast: Saoirse Ronan, Eric Bana, Cate Blanchett, Tom Hollander

Hanna - Movie review

Hanna
U/A; action
Dir: Joe Wright
Cast: Saoirse Ronan, Eric Bana, Cate Blanchett, Tom Hollander
Rating: ***

Joe Wright crafts a high-energy chase thriller with Hanna. The film is about her, a teenage assassin (Saoirse Ronan) whose exposure to the real world, as opposed to the wilds where she lived with her ex-CIA agent father (Eric Bana), catapults her into a piquant and strange intrigue involving a CIA operative Marissa Wiegler (Cate Blanchett).

From this point on the narrative embarks into a fairy tale flourish with Marissa setting her henchmen on Hanna, who is chasing Marissa herself.

Hanna is 16 and has all the skills required to succeed in real life combat situations, as she has been meticulously trained by her father during their years in hibernation.

The movie opens with Hanna tracking and striking down a deer with a bow and arrow. She is seen running fast and faster, yet pursuing her target with consummate ease and then finally killing it with a gun. The sequence probably signifies her readiness to come out of the shadow world. Once she breaks away from her father, she has to face Marissa and unravel the mystery of her strange existence.

The screenplay by Seth Lockhead and David Farr incorporates clich ufffdd sequences from several action movies but that doesn't take anything away from the integral story of Hanna's transformation in the real world.

The entire scenario is a bit odd and off-kilter but it is interestingly driven. However, the cat and mouse game between Marissa and Hanna doesn't end in great fireworks as expected. The end game, in fact appears too feeble and weak in comparison to what transpired before it. Hanna's love for her father despite their separation is quite tangible.

Eric Bana and Blanchett, who plays her character with an appreciably menacing flamboyance, essay their roles with finesse. But, the characters they play are thinly modeled. Saoirse imbues Hanna with a spirited emotional and moral fibre that helps take the narrative beyond the mere commonplace.

The fight sequences are fantastic; the narrative is intense and absorbing. The music by Chemical Brothers adds to the intense involvement.

The only problem here is believability of the central point itself.

Hanna appears too young to be able to do all the things she is made to do in the story and that makes the whole experience of the film a tad wanting!