Colombiana

In “Colombiana” cold-hearted assassin Cataleya kills everything in her path, which unfortunately also includes the plot of her movie.

After witnessing her parents’ murder Cataleya (Zoe Saldana) grows up to be a vicious assassin. As she kills she sends messages to her parents’ murders telling them, “I’m coming.” The killings also gain the attention of law enforcements and F.B.I. agent Ross (Lennie James). However, Cataleya manages to escape their grasp every single time.

Other than that there is no plot. The movie just ambles on from killing to killing without much direction. The movie takes too long to get to the climax and there’s not much of an increase in suspense to get their either. Also all the gunk in the middle doesn’t always clearly relate to the revenge story.

Although the action in “Colombiana” proves to be exciting for the most part, the pacing is significantly less so. This makes the overall pace of the movie uneven half the time audiences are bored waiting for something to happen, then it tries to excite audiences with dazzling lights of explosions and gunfire.

Even with the action there’s not enough action to carry the movie. However, since there isn’t much of a plot to carry “Colombiana” just aimlessly floats around. Essentially, the plot has not point and thus is pointless in the direction it wants to take audiences.

Screenwriters Robert Mark Kamen and Luc Besson fail to focus on getting their protagonist from plot point one to the climax. They give Cataleya strong motivation for what she’s doing but they don’t provide her with a clear direction of where to go. It’s almost like they wanted to write a revenge movie but forgot about the revenge part until the last forty-five minutes. Then once it’s over they don’t know how to finish it.

“Colombiana”’s only saving aspect is Saldana’s performance. Cataleya is nearly emotionless she can’t even have a normal conversation with someone. Saldana plays this stoic role with excellent coldness. However when she does show emotion, especially when thinking back on her parents, Saldana gives it her all and unleashes a passion of emotion on to the audience and everyone in the theater feels it.

In spite of Saldana’s performance it fails to compensate or cover up the unsatisfactory plot. “Colombiana” provides audiences with a forgettable action movie that is just like the villains in it: dead.