An average movie

To be honest, I actually wonder how this movie did end up in my queue. Maybe it was the very cool posters or maybe I do have a really weak spot for Taraji P. Henson (probably a combination of the two). In fact, the damned thing did have some potential. It was basically some kind of mix of ‘Shaft’ with ‘John Wick’ with a black female lead and this concept did sound indeed really awesome. Unfortunately, even though the (really cool) posters and the opening did seem to promise some flashy homage to the 70’s Blaxploitation, unfortunately, the directing turned out to be so cheap, uninspiring and just plain boring. I’m afraid the writing was not much better. It was a good reminder that, even if you have a good idea or a good story, there is no guarantee that you will get a good movie, especially if you don’t have a solid director at the helm. Concerning the actors involved, I won’t blame Taraji P. Henson, she was actually not bad at all. She even had some decent chemistry with Jahi Di'Allo Winston. Unfortunately, there was not much she could do with this rather weak material. Danny Glover, who was the only other big name in this movie, was basically sleepwalking through the whole thing. Maybe he knew it was not worth the effort. It’s too bad because, even though the whole thing did feel derivative, I could sense that there was actually a pretty good movie hidden there somewhere. The weird thing was that it was obviously developed as Henson being some cool lethal femme fatale but, along the way, it seemed that they dropped this idea somehow and decided to deliver instead another generic and completely forgettable actioner (as if we don’t have already enough of those on Netflix…) about this woman becoming a mother and leaving this ‘evil’ world behind. Anyway, to conclude, even though I understand why Henson would be attracted by something like this, it’s a shame that it turned out to be another disappointing movie after all. 

5/10