Movie
Colombiana (2011)
One of several ‘villainess protagonist’ entries on my list, this one has a female assassin out for – what else? – revenge. Despite the tragic backstory of its central character Cataleya, I’d still place her fimrly in anti-heroine territory (at least) due to her cold blooded style and the ruthless nature of her executions.
As plots go Colombiana is fairly standard fare, yet another tale of retribution that plays out predictably. That said, the lead is more interesting than most.
Villainess Protagonist
Cateleya (Zoe Saldana)
The opening twenty-five minutes features Cataleya as young girl (played by Amandla Stenberg for these scenes), and it’s clear from the outset she’s a fiery one. Her father is involved in the criminal underworld and becomes the target of a crime lord. Good thing he’s weapons trained his family, then. This includes his wife (who seems handy with automatic weapons), and teenage daughter who takes the first opportunity she gets to grab a hidden knife and skewer a henchman’s hand to the dining table.
Even at this young age, Cataleya is a force to be reckoned with, navigating the streets and shanty towns of Bogota with athleticism and intelligence. After she eludes her pursuers, our anti-heroine is able to bargain her way into the United States (financial data from her father comes in handy here), give the authorities the slip and meet up with an old family friend in Chicago. Said friend is – of course – a criminal, who Cataleya asks to train her as a killer. She certainly wastes no time plotting revenge.
After a time skip, we then see Cataleya as an adult, orchestrating a fake DUI (drunk under the influence, for those who don’t know) crime to get herself locked up in a police station. This is all to get close to a criminal under guard by US Marshals who’s locked up in the same building – the assassin’s target. This Cateleya is a grown up version of what we saw before, with the same intelligence and athletic skill, only even more cold and heartless than previously. After an imaginative sequence – where Cataleya escapes custody and disables a vent fan with what’s lying around – we get the execution scene where the protagonist shows no remorse.
Things finally settle down after that, with three subplots going on at the same time. The first involves a police detective piecing together Cataleya’s many murders (over 20 by this point, with the back story told through exposition and flashbacks). The second subplot is the prerequisite romance that seems to be present in all female assassin tales – she may as well give up, because these never play out happily. For the final subplot, there’s the relationship between Cataleya and her adopted father / mentor, which is breaking down since she is obsessed with revenge to the point of leaving ‘calling card’ tattoos on her victims.
To keep things moving along, there’s another assassination, this time at a luxury villa with a glass-covered shark pool as its main attraction (!). This is there to provide an over-the-top death scene with the crooked financier owner fed to his own pets by the merciless hitwoman. Subplots are then wrapped up with the boyfriend taking a photo – which leads to a police raid on Cateleya’s apartment and a daring getaway. Her antics finally get her mentor killed, which really pisses her off. And that’s something you don’t want to do.
After Cataleya blackmails / tricks the detective into helping her, she gets the location of the main villain from a corrupt agent. Putting a man in the crosshairs of a high-powered sniper rifle is a good way to break down his resistance.
This all leads into the big finale with Cataleya assaulting the big boss’ mansion estate with enough firepower to take out a small army. That’s good because he has – or rather had – a lot of bodyguards. They don’t last long, except for the main lieutenant who puts up a bit more of a struggle, but goes down after a brutal fight. All through this, the main baddie hides away in a safe room. After the massacre, he makes a run for it and thinks he’s gotten away in a van. He should really have checked the rear before setting off, then he might have seen the assassin’s hounds. Seems feeding her targets to hungry animals is this woman’s speciality.
Honourable Mention
Theme: Assassins
Menno’s Mind (1997) – Loria (Stephanie Romanov)
Another movie with an anti-heroine firmly in villainess protagonist territory is this direct-to-video sci-fi thriller. The reluctant hero is a computer programmer (Billy Campbell), who finds himself drawn into a rebel operation to expose a corrupt politician planning to win an election through subliminal mind control. Virtual reality is a familiar plot device, and the movie features some rather atrocious computer graphics that weren’t exactly great in the 1990s.
The female lead is the black-garbed Loria who acts more like a cold-blooded henchwoman than a heroine. She has no problem killing security personnel (often in brutal fashion, with two men finished off with neck snaps) or threatening the programmer at gunpoint. The poor man is even forced into being a guinea pig when Loria downloads her dead lover’s memories into the geek’s brain.
The only reason to root for Loria is the bad guy (Corbin Bernsen) is even nastier than she is. Perhaps fittingly, she sacrifices herself to save the programmer at the end and is reunited with her lover in cyberspace. Don’t expect things to make sense – it’s that kind of movie.
Action Woman Fan 