The Rhythm Section

I have seen some really good movies in the past few months.  Unfortunately, this was not one of them.  “The RhythmSection” stars Blake Lively as Stephanie Patrick, who has sunk into a life of prostitution and drugs after her whole family is killed in an airplane crash.  After finding out that the crash was actually caused by a bomb, she decides to track down those responsible and kill them.   This makes it even worse, since they changed flights for her, and she didn’t even show up for the flight. The first clue I had that this movie wasn’t Oscar calibre was when I started to doze about 30 minutes in.  I think I was in and out for about 15 minutes and I didn’t miss much.  The first hour was labored, and even boring at times, as it dragged on introducing us to Stephanie and her sleazy life.  She is found by a reporter trying to help her determine who really was responsible for the bombing of her family’s flight.  But he is murdered.  She is able to trace his source and takes several buses to Scotland, where she is able to easily find the source, who is played by Jude Law.  He may or may not be an MI6 agent.  Don’t worry, you’re never going to find out. The second half of the movie picks up as Stephanie poses as a Russian hit-woman, but she isn’t very good.  It’s no wonder, as it looks like Jude spent at least three or four days ‘training’ her.  You are left to wonder what exactly he actually taught her. In fact she only fullfills most of her missions by sheer luck.  There is a lot of action in the second half, but most of it is poorly written and a bit perposterous.  I think I can tell you without spoiling the movie that rhythm section refers to having control of your heart beat and breathing so that you can keep your emotions under control.  I felt left hanging at several points and at times, events didn’t flow naturally into each other.  A lot of things were left unexplained and unexplored. Definitely not worth seeing in a theatre even if you are a fan of Jude Law (which I am) or Blake Lively (which I am not).