The Rhythm Section: Blake Lively Revenge Thriller Sputters Long Before Stuff Blows Up Good

By Kim Hughes

Rating: C

There are some impressive levels of stupidity reached in the new Blake Lively actionerThe Rhythm Section but sadly, none are spectacularly stupid or novel enough to merit a hearty recommendation.

Really, how hard is it to make a female revenge movie? A pretty good one runs through my head just about every day, notably when I am riding public transit and experience people who don’t understand why backpacks should be removed on crowded trains or how doorways work (in or out, not standing in the wings with a phone jutting out from your chest).

Another question: why are bad-ass females so often brunette? Blondes don’t experience cripplingly awful things? Or is it that blondes are just too delicate to blow shit up? These thoughts zoomed through my skull while watching The Rhythm Section, perhaps as a self-preservation mechanism to keep me from questioning the dubious action happening on-screen, which made even less sense than one person taking up two seats on a 5:15 pm eastbound subway. But don’t get me started.

So, the…uh… plot. I really can’t do much better than the official description which, read in hindsight, offers tantalizing clues that this film is a howler and not in a good way. Take it away, Paramount:

“Blake Lively stars as Stephanie Patrick, an ordinary woman on a path of self-destruction after her family is tragically killed in a plane crash. When Stephanie discovers that the crash was not an accident, she enters a dark, complex world to seek revenge on those responsible and find her own redemption. Based on the novel by Mark Burnell, from director Reed Morano (The Handmaid’s Tale) and the producers of the James Bond film series, The Rhythm Section also stars Jude Law and Sterling K. Brown.”

Allow me to fill in some gaps. When we first meet present-day Stephanie, she is working as the world’s angriest and most withdrawn prostitute, which is saying something. But her john, Proctor (Raza Jaffrey), isn’t interested in sex. He’s a journalist, tracking the case of the downed plane that claimed Stephanie’s family and with it, her will to live and to wash her hair.

Back at the journo’s apartment, Stephanie finds walls covered in evidence including images of the hundreds of innocent people killed when the plane went down, Steph’s mom, dad, brother and sister among them. It’s clear our girl is suffering acute survivor’s guilt and/or PTSD, and soon the wheels start turning on revenge for this crime. It’s also clear Stephanie is no revenge robot in the mould of Atomic Blonde.

A series of predictable and more-or-less meh events (well, OK, a murder her carelessness helped facilitate) lead accident-prone Stephanie to remote Scotland where she encounters Law’s character, a brooding ex-intelligence officer living a survivalist existence, who will train our girl to be a running, knife-wielding killing machine, all the while telling her with dead-eyed earnestness that revenge against multi-level, highly coordinated terrorists won’t ease the pain of a dead family. As if!

The MI6 and CIA soon factor as the action shifts between Tangier and Madrid where Stephanie meets (and beds, naturally), another ex agent (Brown in glasses so we’ll know he’s serious) as she continues her quest to bring down those heartless meanies (or weenies, depending on your POV) responsible for bringing down the plane that her family shouldn’t have been on but were, thus transforming Stephanie from a smiling blonde to a scowling brunette with wounded daggers for eyes.

Shots will be fired, stuff will blow up, and bad guys will faceplant for all eternity. Of course, there is one scene that requires our girl to be tricked out as a Bettie Page-style call girl with foxy, revealing threads. Because Hollywood.

Yes, we know that January is a dumping ground for bad films. But The Rhythm Section is especially disappointing given its strong cast in front of and behind the scenes and its obvious ambition to rise above a paint-by-numbers action film with a somewhat relatable protagonist.

Plus, the female revenge movie is an evergreen concept, as everything from Hard Candy to First Wives Club to Kill Bill to I Spit on Your Grave handily prove. Some of them even had bad-ass blondes.

The Rhythm Section. Directed by Reed Morano. Starring Blake Lively, Jude Law and Sterling K. Brown. Opens wide January 31.