Director: Luc Besson
Distributor: Belga Home Video
Duration: 119 minutes
Anna (DVD) – Movie Review
The James Bond movies are still the most prominent series of spy movies to this day. While arguably some movies are not as good as others, the action and suspense are always top-notch in said films. Over the years we’ve seen many replicate the shaken, but not stirred, formula of the Bond movies, and some even created parodies such as the Austin Powers films and the Johnny English series. It’s still quite hard to match the quality of these films, at least until Luc Besson meddled with the spy business. Luc Besson, known for the Fifth Element and the Taxi movies, decided it was time to make an interesting spy movie that revolves around a poor, yet beautiful, Russian girl. While initially, we didn’t get much wind of the movie, we didn’t expect too much of it. Once again the French director proved us very wrong.
The story of Anna is actually quite hard to properly summarize without too many spoilers. In its essence, the movie revolves around Anna (Sasha Luss), a young Russian woman who is leading a rather miserable life, with an abusive good-for-nothing boyfriend. When her boyfriend decides to rob an American tourist and gets involved in a scuffle with the police, Anna gets presented with an opportunity to work for the KGB, to make something out of her life. From here on out it’s a mix of action and intrigue. We reckon this is a very vague description, but sketching a spy movie is pretty much asking for it to be ruined. (It’s good, we promise.)
The flow of the movie is a bit odd at first, as you’ll go from past to present to in-between both points in time, constantly switching from one to another. This is quite confusing at the beginning, but when all the pieces of the puzzle start connecting with each other, you’ll be slowly crawling to the edge of your seat to see what comes next. The movie is able to grab your attention from the first minute until the last, and even though there are a few more predictable scenes in the movie, there are more than enough plot twists and revelations to surprise you by the time the credits start rolling.
While you’ll hardly recognize the impressive presence of Helen Mirren, this movie does have some other famous faces in the cast. You’ll notice the prominent presences of Luke Evans and Cillian Murphy on the Russian and American side of the fence respectively. Both actors represent their agencies (KGB and CIA) quite well and make sure a certain atmosphere is set. That being said, the somewhat unknown lead of the movie, Sasha Luss, does an extraordinary job in portraying her character in this cat and mouse action flick. She handles her role with grace, playing a model, a secret agent and a fragile girl wanting nothing more than freedom, all at once. We hope to see this young exquisite actress star in many more quality pieces to come, as she certainly has the skills.
The DVD version of Anna comes with a handful of special features. These extras range from an interview with Luc Besson, interviews with the cast, to many making of sequences. While you will only prolong your Anna experience for about thirty minutes, the extras on the disc are interesting to watch. It would have been nice to learn about the actual world of spies, and perhaps about the actual past conflicts between Russia and America, but perhaps things would have been a tad too political then.
Conclusion
While we dived in with rather low expectations, even with Luc Besson’s directing skills, we were quite wowed by Anna in general. Sasha Luss is a stunning presence and knows how to handle her lead in this movie perfectly. The story is suspenseful and interesting until the credits start rolling. With some brutal action sequences thrown in the mix, both action and thriller fans will certainly enjoy this interesting spy movie.
Anna (DVD) - Movie Review,
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