Rating: **
Review Date: 8/10/25
Director: Ryuhei Kitamura
Cast: Ruby Rose, Aksel Hennie, Rupert Evans, Jean Reno, Dan Southworth,
Louis Mandylor
Ali Gorski (Ruby Rose) is an ex-Marine who was working overseas and is now back in New York City. She takes a job as a doorman at an apartment building that's being renovated, and it just so happens that a group of criminals show up while she's there to steal some art that's locked away in one of the units. And that unit just happens to be where her estranged brother-in-law just happens to be living, and his family just happens to be one of two families that didn't leave during the renovation. So many improbable coincidences... Naturally, the bad guys don't play nice, and it's up to Ali to kill them before they kill her and her family.
It's an obvious riff on "Die Hard" (1988) that immediately reminded me of Daisy Ridley's "Cleaner" (2025). Ruby Rose is charming throughout and gives a solid performance, and while it's great to see her in a lead action role, her fight scenes come off as a little soft. Aksel Hennie makes an excellent villain, but the rest of the supporting cast is mediocre at best, and hampered by a weak script and dreadful dialog. Granted, all action movies are dumb, but is it really that hard to write semi-intelligent dialog? The action scenes are entertaining, but not particularly noteworthy. Ruby Rose has great physicality, aggression, and conviction, but her action scenes tend to lack a certain spark that I can't quite explain. Maybe it's in the choreography, the angles, the pacing, or the editing. I'm not sure, but some secret sauce was missing. Or maybe I'm just depressed and have my expectations set too high. It's not a great film, but it's not terrible, either, and it satisfied my female action craving.