Film Review: Anna

Continuing his tradition of featuring strong female characters, Luc Besson makes another attempt with Anna. Sasha Luss plays the assassin Anna, and her performance is the highlight of the film.

Anna is a drug-addicted prostitute who, after the death of her pimp/boyfriend, becomes a superhuman KGB killer. She works as a supermodel in the daytime and kills her targets at night.

The story takes place in Moscow in 1985. KGB agents race around the city and arrest several suspects. A CIA agent identifies one of the suspects when someone sends a severed head to his office.  

Don’t you miss the Cold War? It was a simpler time with well-defined enemies and blood-soaked packages.

The film quickly shifts its focus to 1990. Anna decides to leave her job selling Russian dolls to become a fashion model. The scenes of Anna posing for her fashion shoots are incredibly long and dull.

I’m not sure why the director chose to spend so much time with the fashion scenes. Maybe he wanted to prove that Sash Luss, who is a successful model in real life, can play a supermodel. Can a tall, beautiful, blonde supermodel play a tall, beautiful, blonde supermodel in a film?

After boring us with fashion, Anna shifts back to 1987 and displays Anna’s rough life as an abused prostitute. Then, once again, the film shifts forward to 1990.

Time after Time

For a movie that has nothing to do with time travel, there are countless flashbacks and flash-forwards. There are so many that you become oblivious to the film’s location or time.

I like films that follow a non-linear path, but Anna’s time shifts seem unnecessary and frustrating. The poorly developed plot is hindered even more by this gimmick. The plot can use all the help it can get.

Strangely, the film never focuses on the year that Anna trains with the KGB.

I would like to know how a reformed addict, with only one year of training, becomes the most lethal assassin in the world.

She’s a cold-blooded killer who rarely shoots her pistol without hitting someone in the head. She cuts through bodyguards and soldiers like they’re butter, and she uses broken plates, bar railing, and dinnerware to dispatch victims when she’s unable to shoot them.

The one time she shows emotion during her killing sprees is when she frantically stabs a large man with a fork. The action scenes with Anna are exciting and the only reason to watch the film.

Sasha Luss looks natural when performing fight scenes, and her acting is not too bad. Her character is hard to dislike, but her frequent complaints about her life as a model/killer become annoying.

Anna is tearful when she talks about gaining her freedom from the KGB, but she doesn’t shed a tear after killing fifty men in two days. She’s a complicated woman.

Luc Besson Blues

I hesitate, for a moment, when I decide to watch a Luc Besson film. He has disappointed me so many times that I always fear the worst. Anna is not the worst, but it’s close.

Besson has a talent for using beautiful, statuesque women in his action films. I commend him for promoting female empowerment, but I wish he could back it up with better writing and directing.

His plot twists and weak dialogue often prevent his Valkyries from achieving greatness. Scarlett Johansson in Lucy, Milla Jovovich in The Messenger, and Sasha Luss in Anna are all examples of strong women who perished under Besson.

I like parts of his films, but most of them involve action sequences.

His most critically acclaimed film, The Professional, is the one I dislike the most. I like Jean Reno, Natalie Portman, and Gary Oldman, but they’re not impressive in Besson’s overrated romp.

The story centers around a sensitive hitman who takes in his neighbor’s teenage daughter while he avoids a cartoonish, dirty cop played by Oldman. Although it’s loved by many, I won’t waste any more time complaining about it.

Mirren needs a Beach House

One of Besson’s worst crimes in Anna is how he uses Helen Mirren. She plays Olga. She’s a strict, KGB officer who handles Anna’s cases.

Her Russian accent is slightly believable, but her brown wig is unintentionally funny. She looks like one of The Turtles and doesn’t seem happy about it.

The head of the KGB makes a crack about her appearance when he says, “We only keep the ugly ones.” Helen Mirren? Ugly?

I’ve never thought of those words fitting together, but I’m biased toward Helen Miren. Ever since I watched Caligula in college, I’ve loved her. In Anna, there’s not much to love.

Olga is more of a caricature of a despotic, Soviet boss than a real character, and her dialogue sounds like the fourteen-year-old version of Luc Besson wrote it.

She delivers memorable lines such as “Anna, no one f#*%! with KGB”. Her broken English won’t win her the Oscar this year, but everyone needs a paycheck.

Oscar winners can’t always perform at a high level, and I don’t have a problem with that. I only wish that Natasha from The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle didn’t come to mind when I saw Mirren in Anna.

There are many theories as to why actors decide to star in bad films, but Sir Michael Caine gave the likeliest answer. When a journalist asked him why he starred in Jaws 4, he said, “I needed a beach house.”