Was Just Leaving

Everly

Confession time: I am a snob when it comes to the movies I watch. I don’t watch direct to video movies and I do not watch B-listed films either. I am strictly high class Hollywood films and I know that I will receive a lot of disgusted looks and sneers for those last comments, but I have high standards…sorry. Though when money is tight and life gets in the way, even snobby movie watchers like me must try and find diamonds in the rough through their Netflix queue. I can fully admit that this is a very hit and miss process (more miss than hit I must say). So when I came across an action film with an A list actress and a promising synopsis, I took a shot (pun intended) with last year’s Everly.

A few years ago a woman by the name of Everly (Selma Hayek Savages) was taken against her will and forced to become of sex slave of the local Yakuza. However, Everly has decided that she wants her life and daughter back so she plans an escape with a police detective. The bad thing about this plan is that the leader of the criminal organization, Taiko (Hiroyuki Watanabe), has found out about Everly’s desire to escape and now has sent a slew of assassins to make sure she doesn’t leave alive.

Okay, so I can tell you right now that this is going to be short and sweet due to the fact that this was pretty much a ridiculous and jumbled film. I tried really hard to push down my elitist attitude and try and find the hidden gem within this action film. That gem was nowhere to be found, I guarantee. The plot of this film seemed intriguing but after a while it just became more and more silly. First off Everly is in an apartment building full of sex slaves that just so happen to have guns and weapons lying around. Second the is a bit in the movie where Everly has a floor boards in her kitchen that she removes to take out a bag full of cash (where the hell a sex slave got that much cash is beyond me) and is shown randomly stuffing things back into this hole. At one point she is stuffing bodies into the floor…yes I said BODIES. How big is this gap between floors? Thirdly this is gory and violent just for the sake of being gory and violent. I have watched a lot of violent and gory films but, I have never seen a film just being violent for violent-sake. I didn’t understand the point to it.

As far as the acting goes, I can only really comment on Hayek due to the fact that the other characters arrive and die just as quickly. You can really tell that Hayek tries her hardest to make this film as entertaining or enjoyable as possible, but somewhere in the filmmaking process she succumbs to the preposterousness that is this film and quits being believable. I was rooting for her in the beginning then at about the start of the third act I just wish someone would either kill her or she would grow wings and fly away just so the film would end.

This was a very rocky start for first time director/writer Joe Lynch. I read somewhere that this script was on The Blacklist and was completely baffled. For those of you that need a little clarity, The Blacklist is a list of the most popular unmade scripts and at times as featured some great films like Whiplash, Foxcatcher, and The Imitation Game. Those were Oscar winning films and yet this script was on there. Lynch tries very hard to pull influences from other great action films with a personal flare that works in the beginning but slowly turns badly.

Maybe with a more experienced director and a better cast this film would have been interesting and maybe even entertaining. However, the film goes from promising to WTF in no time flat. Yet in some ways I blame myself for my agony with this film, but life is full of chances and risks. Some pan out and others…well, fall flat on their face.

The Verdict: Not Worth Your Time.