3 stars (out of 5)
Director: Joe Wright
Cast: Saoirse Ronan, Eric Bana, Cate Blanchett, Tom Hollander, Olivia Williams, Jason Flemyng, Jessica Barden, Aldo Maland.
Rating: (M)
If you go to a lot of movies it is amazing the number of people who turn out to be trained killers. Hanna (Rialto) opens in the purity of a snow-covered landscape with 16-year-old Hanna (Saoirse Ronan) out hunting.
She is not your typical teenager.
She and her father, Erik (Eric Bana) are hiding in remote Finland while he trains her to face the danger that awaits them when they re-enter the world. Hanna is desperate to get on with her mission and persuades Erik that she is ready.
The evil the two have to face comes in the shape of Cate Blanchett, who plays high-ranking CIA agent Marissa, who worked with Erik before he took to the wilds.
Marissa and Erik were involved in some dodgy operations and she is as keen to kill him and Hanna as they are focused on killing her first. The catch-me-if-you-can game that follows is breathtakingly nutty: full of plot holes you could drive a campervan through.
Most of the time that does not really matter. If you can buy the slender Ronan as a full-on killing machine, you will be willing to brush aside all niggles just for the sheer fun of it all. A trail of carnage through three countries should be grim viewing but as it is so clearly fantasy, we are free to be amused by it.
Best thing: Tom Hollander as a German hit man who favours pastel-coloured leisurewear manages to be both menacing and hilarious at the same time.
Worst thing: It pains me to say this but Cate Blanchett was the one performer who did not seem at home in this world and kept jolting me back into an awareness of how ridiculous it really was.
See it with: A Jason Bourne fan.
- Christine Powely
