The Rhythm Section review

THE RHYTHM SECTION: 

EVEN WITH STAR POWER LIKE BLAKE LIVELY AND JUDE LAW, THIS ACTION-THRILLER IS ONE UNDERWHELMING “RHYTHM”! 

By Nico Beland 

Movie Review: ** out of 4 

PARAMOUNT PICTURES AND GLOBAL ROAD ENTERTAINMENT

Blake Lively in The Rhythm Section

            A woman seeks to uncover the truth behind a mysterious plane crash that killed her family in The Rhythm Section, the new film directed by Reed Morano (Halt and Catch Fire, Billions, The Handmaid’s Tale) and based on the novel of the same name by Mark Burnell, who also wrote the film’s screenplay. Produced by Barbara Broccoli and her production company, Eon Productions, the same studio behind the James Bond film series, granted I’m not all that familiar with Eon’s non-007 movies nor have I read the book that The Rhythm Section is based on, so I really didn’t know what to expect with this film. 

            Despite knowing almost nothing about the story aside from what was shown in the trailer, I was interested in seeing the movie. It looked like your basic action-thriller, nothing fancy but still it seemed fun and badass, not to mention the casting of Blake Lively (Gossip Girl, The Shallows, A Simple Favor) whose career is pretty much on fire lately, this couldn’t possibly fail…right? 

            Okay, it doesn’t exactly fail as a complete trainwreck, but The Rhythm Section is so safe and indifferent from other, better films in its genre that it does fail to leave much of an impression. It’s just a generic run-of-the-mill revenge thriller that doesn’t really do anything interesting with its story or characters, almost like a somehow lazier and blander version of Red Sparrow, but at least there were a few interesting ideas explored in that film. 

            The film follows Stephanie Patrick (Lively), a woman trying to uncover the truth behind a plane crash that killed her family three years ago. However, when she discovers that the crash was not accidental, she embarks on a mission to track down the one’s responsible by assuming the identity of an assassin and being trained by an expert in assassination known as Iain Boyd (Jude Law-The Talented Mr. Ripley, Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, Captain Marvel). 

            The film also stars Sterling K. Brown (The People v. O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story, Black Panther, Frozen II) as Marc Serra, Max Casella (The Sopranos, Boardwalk Empire, Jak and Daxter (video game series)) as Leon Giler, Daniel Mays (Vera Drake, The Adventures of Tintin, 1917) as Dean West, Geoff Bell (Green Street, The Business, Kingsman: The Golden Circle) as Green, Richard Brake (Batman Begins, Game of Thrones, Mandy) as Lehmans, Raza Jaffrey (Spooks, Homeland, Code Black) as Keith Proctor, and Tawfeek Barhom (A Borrowed Identity, The Idol, Wounded Land) as Reza. 

            Overall, The Rhythm Section proves that Blake Lively and Jude Law work well together, unfortunately without an interesting story or compelling and well-written characters, their talents are wasted as they get lost in this slog of an “action-thriller”, I put that in quotes because it doesn’t really succeed at either. There aren’t enough thrilling action sequences with only a few that stand out nor is there anything unique or fascinating about the story to be engrossed in. 

            It’s all a bunch of formulaic and predictable action/revenge thriller tropes we’ve seen a million times before on top of really awkward editing and flat character development. Literally, there are no character motivations or reasons behind the choices made in this film as if they exist just to get the plot going and nothing more. 

The film never bothers to show what kind of person Stephanie was before the plane crash, her relationships with her family, what she did for work, etc. instead the movie begins with the plane crash and she’s already flashing back to memories with her family. And yeah, it sucks that her family died, but if that’s all she’s got then there isn’t much of a reason to care about her. 

Had the movie given her an interesting personality and explored her life prior to the plane crash, she would have been a far better character than what we ended up with. Blake Lively is clearly trying her hardest to be convincing in the role, but I’m sorry Stephanie Patrick is an action heroine I will forget about in a couple of days. 

Jude Law’s character is slightly better developed, and he does have some genuine badass and funny moments (Intentional or unintentional I’m not sure yet) as the mysterious mentor for Lively’s Stephanie with a shady past and a huge fixation on physical violence, imagine if Rocky’s coach could kick your ass harder than Balboa himself, that’s Jude Law in this movie in a nutshell. However, his segways into violent training with Stephanie can be so sudden and ridiculous, it’s borderline laughable and even near the end he tries to jump Stephanie like a mugger or one of the bad guys as a joke and it’s hard to tell whether or not they become friends at the end or if he’s eventually going to kick Stephanie’s teeth in for breaking into his house in the first place, but I digress. 

The action sequences are too few and far between but one that sticks out is a car chase all done in one shot and while it is exhilarating, I found it a little too shaky and difficult to make most of the sequence out. Not to mention, I had just seen the one camera shot shtick done a million times better in 1917 a few weeks ago. 

I can’t even be angry at The Rhythm Section it left so little an impression, it’s just a boring, safe action/revenge drama that has some good performances by Blake Lively and Jude Law, but they aren’t enough to save it from being a slog to get through. This movie is under two hours, but it felt like it was at least two-and-a-half hours of Blake Lively walking from destination to destination with boring exposition and the occasional action sequence to wake us the f*ck up. 

I’m not sure how faithful this movie is to the source material but if it is and you’re a fan of the book then by all means go watch the movie, perhaps you’ll have a better time with it than I have. However, as a standalone action film for people who aren’t familiar with the book then this dull “Rhythm” will probably put you to sleep, sorry Eon, better luck next time with Bond’s No Time to Die in a couple of months.