Eva Green is great but the movie misses the mark

Despite a great performance from Eva Green, very little about this action film works, and it marks another misfire for Martin Campbell.

PLOT: Centers on a group of female soldiers who disguise themselves as medics to rescue a group of teenagers caught between ISIS and the forces of the Taliban.

REVIEW: Martin Campbell is mostly known for being franchise Viagra for the 007 series but he’s been chugging away at action movies for decades. Outside of his Bond work, I’ve never really connected with any of his films but I appreciate how he shoots action. And I’m a sucker for creative re-team-ups, so it’s nice to see it’s nice to see him and Eva Green join forces again. Especially with Green taking on a role that is so different from her usual choices. But sadly nearly everything about Dirty Angels feels dated and uninspired.

The film follows a group of female soldiers who are tasked with rescuing a group of kidnapped girls from ISIS. Tensions in the area are at an all-time high, with The Taliban and ISIS fighting for control. This makes the rescue effort all the more difficult.  There are stretches of Dirty Angels that really impress. The first twenty minutes where a bunch of schoolgirls are kidnapped by ISIS are riveting. There’s a moment where girls are thrown off a roof that is so well shot, that you really feel the impact of the moment. When you don’t stop and think long on the geopolitics of it all, the story is intriguing enough. But the film can get hampered by trying to make a point while not realizing how tone-deaf it actually is.

Eva Green is absolutely fantastic as Jake, a tough soldier who we see captured at the beginning. She’s tough as nails and works really well in the role. It’s hard to believe this is the same woman who portrayed Vesper all those years ago. The film needed to be entirely focused on her and tell the story through her eyes. At least that would have given us some kind of perspective instead of this “all sides” one that we receive. This results in a very surface-level experience that doesn’t really bring anything new to the table. This is a team-up movie without the actual characterization required to keep it interesting.

She doesn’t have a lot of screen time, but May Kurtz really impresses. Her story could have easily carried an entire movie and she brings a strength to a role that really needs it. I was worried when I saw Ruby Rose on the cast list, but she’s properly utilized here, with very limited dialogue. It’s been interesting to see all the different roles Maria Bakalova has taken since coming on the scene with Borat 2. She’s very lowkey here and blends in with the other characters. It’s really only Green who gets a chance at any proper characterization. Everyone else could be swapped with another, and there’d be little change to the story.

The action is very old-fashioned, with very simple setups, explosions, and gunfights. I won’t lie, it’s kind of charming, if not a bit dated. There are some moments, like the hand-to-hand combat with Eva Green, where it gets a little interesting but it happens with infrequency. Otherwise, this could have fit in with the low-budget action fare of the 2000s. This also really highlighted why I hate CGI bullet hits: the sheer lack of impact. They don’t interact with the world around them properly and always feel very digital. Combine these with the lame character deaths that come out of nowhere, and it makes for a very unsatisfying experience.

Unfortunately, Dirty Angels is more of a whimper than a bang. The story has moments of intrigue but often falls into an absurdly myopic view of the world. The great performance from Green isn’t enough to get past the by-the-numbers action beats. I’ll give them credit for not having any girl power moments and just treating the cast as they should: like they’re soldiers. Because there is a very human story here at its core. It’s just too bad that it’s bogged down by trying to be an action ensemble.

DIRTY ANGELS RELEASES TO SELECT THEATERS ON DECEMBER 13TH, 2024.