Innocence can be deadly.
Rating: 8/10
Running Time: 111 minutes
US Certificate: PG-13 UK Certificate: 12A
Hanna (Ronan) is a teenager bought up in the wilderness?by her tough but loving Dad (Bana) to be the perfect assassin. When she reaches the right age she is dispatched on an important mission but soon finds herself lost in a desert and hunted across North Africa and Europe by ruthless intelligent operatives. Along the way she finds out some uncomfortable truths and partially learns how to be a normal girl. This is the new super stylish thriller by genre straddling Director Joe Wright.
As Hanna, Saoirse Ronan adds another truly amazing performance to her resume after 2010’s The Way Back. This brilliant ‘child’ actor conveys both sides to Hanna with depth and likeability which goes a long way to ensuring this film isn’t a one-gimmick let-down. How old is she though? Hanna and her even younger looking friend share the only romantic subplot of the film with a couple of Spaniards in their twenties – just a tad paedophilic. The peripheral characters – including an Anton Chigurh-like German bad guy with a delightfully poor fashion sense and an amusing bickering hippie family – do their part in making the story more and more intriguing. Only Eric Bana lets the side down as he shows just why he kept a neutral accident in Munich.
With bass heavy music fused with slick yet simple choreography stimulate the senses and keep you interested with the drama-punctuating action scenes. Hanna’s escape from the bunker is, in particular, one of the finest executions of action I have seen in a long time. For once I didn’t go and make a cup of tea as the bullets fly and the metal crunches. The plot is sometimes a little uneven but the style and setting of the film wins through as Hanna passes through snow covered tundra, Moroccan deserts and gritty European ports and cities.
It's Got: Perfectly executed action scenes, many playground-based killings, a performance beyond her years from Saoirse Ronan
It Needs: For Eric Bana to not bother with the accent, a little more even plot development
Summary
Super stylish and refreshingly different, Joe Wright and the young Saoirse Ronan elevate this thriller above a mere gimmick.