I had but one expectation walking in to Anna: To see a movie that would ride the new wave of Wickness — an extremely bloody, highly choreographed shoot’em-up made to match the style and body count of Keanu Reeves’ wildly successful John Wick series.
After all, that’s what the trailer sold me — basically a fight scene with pulsing electronic music and a violent femme using guns and kicks and broken dishes to wipe out an entire restaurant full of bad guys. Oh, and it’s got Helen Mirren in big ugly glasses, smoking cigarettes! It’s got to be good, right?
Indeed it is, but what the film actually turns out to be is a slow-boiling tale of secret agencies and the superassassin they both want under their thumbs.
Anna (Sasha Luss) just wants to be free from oppression. Living a gloomy existence in Moscow with a terrible boyfriend, she suddenly finds herself of interest to the KGB, then the CIA. There are plenty of twists and turns as expected in a film about governments and their sinister staffs. If you love a good Russian tale of emotional detachment and assassinations, then Anna will leave you satisfied.
I was surprised to learn only after the credits that the movie is directed by Luc Besson. The trailer did say “From the creator of The Professional,” but, honestly, there were just too many kicks and punches going on in that thing for me to pay attention to words.
Besson does a great job with deliberate pacing that really ratchets up in the final act. There’s smart use of flashbacks and jumps forward, which is really the only way this story of crosses and double-crosses could play out. But I have to say that my favorite aspect of the film is Mirren as Olga, Anna’s KGB boss. She’s amazing, playing the character with insidious charm and even humor. I loved every minute of her screen time.
For fans of globetrotting espionage and stark scenes of cold, harsh Soviet Russia — which I personally drool over — Anna is one to see.
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