HANNA

The Opposite of Tron

Review by: Yumi

I love it when you see an actor finally start to really enjoy themselves and Cate Blanchett looks like she's enjoying the shit out of herself in the new action fairytale Hanna which is out today (28/07/11).  

A third of the way through, I knew with absolute certainty that this was going to be one of my favourite movies for 2011.  And I wasn't disappointed.  (Which is totally different from the time I went and saw Tron at iMax and paid, like 25 bucks and was totally bored and couldn't really get a good nap in and sort of left with a new and unpleasant loathing of Jeff Bridges.)

Cate Blanchett finally puts away all that ethereal shit for a while and just enjoys being a badass in Prada shoes while her friend and fellow Aussie Eric Bana is divine as a sort of mountain-man recluse in fur and a beard and all unwashed and manly.  It's the sort of role Tom Cruise WISHES he could play - but Hollywood knows that when you want manly bearishness, you go to Eric Bana.  I met him once.  He is a big unit.  He's all in proportion.  He looks like he could slaughter a cow, bleed it, gut it, throw it over his shoulders and dance around with it at a blue-light disco.  

Eric was doing press about a car doco he'd made, Love The Beast (2009).  I confessed to Eric when we met that the family car, me and my sprogs had been driving around in for the past 5 years was a Holden but I'd spent 4.9 years sincerely believing it was a Toyota.  He sort of looked through me like I was a small, buzzing insect.  I win people over like that, y'know, with my banter.  

Anyway, the movie Hanna isn't Eric's, nor Cate's.  The film belongs to its 17-year-old star, New York-born but in all other respects, Irish actor Saoirse Ronan. She'd teamed up with the director Joe Wright before on Atonement - for which she was so good she was nominated for a Best Supporting Actress Oscar.  They clearly like each other and her commitment to her character in this film is dazzling.  

The less you know about the plot, the more you'll enjoy the film, suffice to say there's shooting and killing but surprisingly little blood, and the whole thing will likely be compared to Run Lola Run because it is, in essence, one big chase film.

The big drawcard is the soundtrack by The Chemical Bros which is more than just a soundtrack, it's sort of the pulsing heart of Hanna.  Sound design is front-and-central in this film.  You'll see a long tracking shot along a subterranean streetscape that becomes an excuse to make the wailing of a homeless nutcase the lead vocals in a stadium-sized techno anthem.  Oh wait, no - he's gone and now it's the swishing of a broom, or the ringing of a phone, it's a busker, it's...  It's very, very cool.

Hit Girl grows up?  Not so much.  It's more like if Natalie Portman's 14 year-old character in Leon (1994) was raised a steroidal survivalist killer in bleakest Eastern Europe and then unleashed.  Yeah!

STARS: 4 stars!

WHO SHOULD SEE IT?  Action fans, art cinema fans, music fans, ceiling fans, sickofans.

SYNOPSIS: Little girl lives in the forest with daddy.  Knows how to kill things. LOTS of things.

RELEASE DATE: In cinemas today