Always had fondness for a great assassin films ever since seeing "Leon: The Professional" and "Nikita." Since then I've seen many others including Woo's "The Killer", the amazing styled amd acted "Le Samourai", the darkly funny "In Bruges", and been addicted to completing every awesome kill in multitudes of ways in the Hitman franchise...I'm just an assassin nut which is why after a long absence I've decided to write another review.
When so many films are trying to too hard to be big and epic and ending up feeling vast and empty, Hanna focuses on being intensely intimate, character driven, and totally ecclectic and badass.
It is colorul in a mid-early 90's way but with an excellent amount of polish to it...the script is taut, very very darkly funny in where the film becomes almost a black comedy by the end credits but it always retains it's narrative focus on the film's brooding and quirky central characters.
The film is almost a master class in style serving substance the movie expresses the wild energy of a young girl albiet a trained killer exploring the world for the first time and all the little joys and sadnesses that go with that. From the brilliant colors and wild cinematography the score by the chemical brothers and the excellent costuming (esp. blanchett) the movie is highly stylized, almost fairytale-esque, but still never loses it's grittiness, and the tone feels like a HARD-R-rated film...it's very adult regardless of the rating and narratively central youth.
The chemical brothers score is especially of note, unlike 'Daft Punk's (I mean Hans Zimmer's) faux score for Tron, this movie was crafted with the score central to the experience and important in understanding the characters...the music acts as representative of the unbridled spirit of this girl. It's sensitive, weird, scary and bad-ass just like Hanna is herself. The score is a must own.
The acting is uniformly great, as to be expected from a Joe Wright film. Saoirse Ronan is especially awesome in the title role, and the movie is scattered with extremely colorful killers and victims...particulary the german trio of assassins that follow Hanna from Africa to Europe, lead by the excellent Tom Hollander( Pirates of the carribean, Pride and Prejudice) in a scenes stealing career defining role as a Kubrick-esque flamboyantly cruel hitman.
Blanchett and Eric Bana are amazing as well, sharing great dialogue and amazing gun battles. Bana has some really crazy fight scenes reminscient and in some ways better than the break neck fights in the Bourne films. Every punch and hit is really felt, it feels almost unreal how hard some of the punches land.
In the end, it really is Ronan and Blanchett's show and they really are formidable adversaries. Blow for blow acting wise they inhabit their quirky violent against type roles with equal aplomb relishing in the tiny character nuances which really make the film very interesting and engaging.
Overall, this movie was a great joy to watch, a really unique film in a sea of almost complete cinematic dreck filling the multiplexes these days...I give it 5 hollow points out of 5.
