Rating: ***
Review Date: 6/29/25
Cast: Jeanne Goursaud, Dougray Scott, Lera Abova
Sara Wulf (Jeanne Goursaud) is an ex-Special Forces soldier who fought in Afghanistan and suffers from PTSD and bouts of delusional behavior. Her squad, including her lover, was ambushed and wiped out by the Taliban, leaving her and her unborn son Josh the only survivors. Six years later, she's offered a job at a US securities firm, but her son is kidnapped at the US Consulate office in Germany and all evidence of him ever being there is erased. Unable to leave the Consulate building and accused of being crazy, Sara escapes custody and begins a desperate search for Josh, while unraveling a deeper conspiracy and several other mysteries in the process.
Of course, as films like this go, the premise is absurd if you apply any sort of critical thinking to it, but that's not why I watch female action films. I watch these movies to see the lead character kick some butt, which Jeanne Goursaud does gloriously. She is an excellent actress and she gives a confident and aggressive physical performance. She also looks fantastic beating people up, and although she dishes out a good amount a punishment, she also does a great job of selling her own pain and vulnerability. The fight choreography is excellent, and while the execution may look a little soft, what's more impressive is that the camera never cuts away so we never see any fake outs. Additionally, all of the fight scenes look like extended single takes, which is physically and technically impressive from every standpoint. I have no idea how they got the camera to move with that kind of speed, precision, and fluidity in such tight quarters. It looks totally unreal.
I'm normally not a fan of "desperate mother" movies, but this one has enough other paranoia, gaslighting, intrigue, and dirty dealing going on to even out the playing field. In general, the writing is decent and dialog is kept to a minimum so that Sara can focus on her mission. Unfortunately, the pacing is uneven, the climax sputters out, and Sara's techie sidekick Kira (Lera Abova) is unnecessarily annoying. Overall, while I found the story to be increasingly confusing and convoluted, I thought it was a good solid actioner with an attractive and compelling lead who has no trouble holding her own. I would love to see Jeanne Goursaud continue to hone her action persona in future action vehicles.
The story wasn't particularly deep, but I found myself thinking about Sara and her situation long after the film was over. "If only they had listened and believed her..." How often do we see women fighting to be seen and heard in society, only to be ignored, silenced, and gaslit into thinking that they're wrong? Of course Sara had the additional baggage of delusional PTSD, which set her up in the beginning as an unreliable narrator, and that reminded me of my mother when she had dementia. Where do you draw the line between reality and fantasy, sanity and insanity? Or is that simply defined by the people who are in charge? Is Sara delusional, or are the bad guys just trying to convince her that she's crazy? Is her son actually just a figment of her broken psyche? What made my mother's perception of reality any less "real" than my own, and what right did I have by trying to convince her that her mother had passed away 37 years ago and that raccoons didn't live in her mattress? Isn't that gaslighting as well? Or does there have to be some kind of malice, intent, or deviation from the norm involved? The human mind is such a strange and wonderful thing. So resilient, and yet so vulnerable.