‘Atomic Blonde’ review: Femme fatale

The first time we see the titular heroine, played by Charlize Theron, she is naked and emerging from an ice bath. Her body, battered and bruised, is shot by director David Leitch, one half of the duo responsible for John Wick (2014), with overt sensuality, almost telegraphing the idea that such brutality dealt on a perfectly formed woman’s figure is sexy.

Almost successful

He is almost successful.

Atomic Blonde, aside from being a nearly incomprehensible caper that has spies covertly flirting and fighting in Berlin a few days prior to the fall of its famous wall, is a fetish-driven spectacle of violence.

A lot of its disjointed pieces are truly impressive. There is a sequence in one abandoned apartment where the film’s heroine demolishes an entire army of German policemen with only a reliable hose as a weapon. There is also another sequence that is terribly truncated to suit the prudes at our local censors’ board that has her descending a flight of stairs while dodging bullets, mutilating thugs, and keeping her taciturn ward from dying. 

In all of these sequences, Leitch never attempts to beautify his heroine. He allows her to suffer and in fact, creates intense delights out of her suffering, which in a certain morbid and cruel sense, is a bit liberating considering that she also commits to the suffering of the men who are careless enough to cross her path.

The world of Atomic Blonde is one of equal opportunities, except that instead of it being presented in the same inspiriting way Patty Jenkins’ Wonder Woman (2017) committed to, it is unraveled through a definite male gaze. It attempts to blur the lines that separate violence and eroticism, with each landing of a purposeful punch or kick as stimulating as a wet and lascivious kiss.

Theron on top

Leitch sets the stage.

Atomic Blonde feels needlessly more sophisticated than it should really be, with clever but sometimes distracting visual flourishes. For example, a nameless goon gets his face punctured with a key while Andrei Tarkovsky’s profound Stalker (1979) is screening in the background. Neon reflecting on the slightly bronzed skin of lesbian lovers in post-coitus seduction. The film isn’t shy about all of its overindulgences and while the fat is more than obvious, it isn’t entirely unwelcome.

Theron occupies the stage Leitch has set in a way that makes all of the film’s extravagances and flaws negligible.

She is vicious in a manner that is also enticing, which fulfills the film’s goal of carving sexuality out of moments that thrive on blood, gore, and destruction. When she reveals cracks of humanity out of her cold and steely exterior, those few seconds of softness out of the many minutes of brilliantly choreographed wanton are the much-needed breathing space in a film that is at its best when it revels in inventive rampage.

Organized disorder

Atomic Blonde is a riot.

It is all over the place like an orgy of strange bedfellows whose only aim is pleasure out of organized disorder. It does not need to make sense especially with a story that looks like an ugly marriage of cheesy spy thriller clichés but it works because it knows when to retreat and just be a delightfully vicious pageant of animalistic urges to hurt, get hurt, and be gratified with the endless hurt that the film so exquisitely drapes itself with. – Rappler.com

Francis Joseph Cruz litigates for a living and writes about cinema for fun. The first Filipino movie he saw in the theaters was Carlo J. Caparas’ ‘Tirad Pass.’ Since then, he’s been on a mission to find better memories with Philippine cinema.