‘The Rhythm Section’ Fails To Stay On Beat
Starring Blake Lively, Jude Law, Sterling K. Brown
R
Action, Drama
Run time: 1 hr, 49 min
Directed by Reed Morano
In theaters January 31, 2020
The preview was inescapable. I’m fairly certain I’d seen the trailer for The Rhythm Section before roughly half the movies I’ve seen in theaters for four months leading up to the release. It seemed like a British version of Red Sparrow, just featuring a hardened Blake Lively instead of Jennifer Lawrence. The trailer did its job though. I was looking forward to this movie. It looked like it was going to be dark, vengeful, maybe even heart-wrenching as we watch this woman who has been through some serious trauma finally take revenge on whoever it was that ruined her life. Unfortunately, the preview oversold a film that fell flat, both in storytelling and overall motivation.
The plot is simple (maybe too simple?): Blake Lively plays Stephanie, a woman who lost all of her family in a tragic plane crash that she should have been on. But wait, it wasn’t just an accident. There was some orchestration around it - and there’s a lot of bad people involved. After a few years of spiraling into darkness, Stephanie is drawn into this world that could expose the terrorism behind the worst thing that’s ever happened to her. So she decides to try to take out anyone who is related to being responsible. That’s it. That’s all there is to it. If it sounds a bit too straight-forward and perhaps even too formulaic, you’re not wrong.
First of all, the good. Blake Lively does a really good job in this film - and reminds us of the range she has, considering the last time she graced movie screens was in the surprisingly wonderful A Simple Favor as a much more elegant character. She manages to stick to landing on the most part when it comes to her accent work (and considering how terrible Robert Downey Jr. did in the Dolittle remake earlier this month, the bar isn’t too high). She also really humanizes the role. Stephanie is not a trained assassin since birth who has no emotions. She’s supposed to be strongly tied to these goals of hers and yet also scared because it’s like nothing she’s ever been a part of. So sometimes, she’s confident, buoyed by her anger, and other times she is whimpering as someone is attempting to murder her - because who wouldn’t be?
However, there is a lot missing from this story. Detail after detail are thrown into the plot only to never be picked back up. Things that you expect to have significance are dropped in as after thoughts and then not mentioned again. For a decent part of the film, Lively’s character is being trained by Jude Law, but we are never really given solid reasons as to why he’s so invested in helping her other than a few offhand remarks about setting things right. With a film like this we need motivation and explanation as to why we should be rooting for our lead. We need to be on board with their emotions. And yet, despite getting a few flashbacks that are played pretty often throughout the movie, I just didn’t connect with Stephanie like I had hoped. Sure, I wanted her to ‘win’ but beyond that, I felt like shrugging when the film ended - having a moment that clearly leaves open the possibility of a sequel. The movie needed a few more minutes of bringing us in, but I know I certainly don’t need another film around any of these characters.