Colombiana

Written by Luc Besson and directed by Olivier Megaton, Colombiana is a tale about a young girl who witnesses the death of her parents and is raised by her uncle to exact revenge. Borrowing from many revenge tales from the past, Colombiana pulls from elements that have worked in the past for many movies but inevitably fails for its inability to think outside of the box.

To put it bluntly you have seen it all before, which for myself was a disappointment being that it was the first movie to be headlined by Zoe Saldana.

How Quickly Things Fell Apart for Colombiana

When Cataleya (Zoe Saldana) sees her parents die in a dramatic farewell by her father, we are made to believe that there is a bigger picture, one of much importance to her. One of the most disappointing things however is that we are never told what the big mystery is, or the history of Cataleya’s family.

While many will enjoy the splendid action scenes, which Zoe pulled off splendidly, people who value plot and storyline will feel empty and cheated. Something went bad on that cutting floor for Colombiana and I assume that the closure I so desperately sought was cut from the movie in order to meet a set time.

Who is Cataleya?

There is one scene where a friend of Cataleya’s tries his best to learn more about her through small talk. The beauty shuts down, smiles a bit and blinks away tears without revealing anything. As the audience you would think that we would have the privilege of knowing who the sexy assassin is, but all we get is a few minutes of her as a child. For that I couldn’t cheer like I needed to when she assassinated the bad guys, and I couldn’t feel relief for her whenever she’d get a hug from her uncle, grandmother or anyone.

Cataleya remains a mystery throughout the entire film.

For all the disappointment that I had with the writing (seems to be a trend this year), I will say that Cliff Curtis who plays Catelya’s Uncle Emilio was a breath of fresh air. He pulled off the compassionate gangster role with ease and was easily the best actor onscreen in my opinion.

It would have done better had we skipped the tired chases by the super sleuth Agent (Lennie James as Special Agent Ross) as there is one of these guys in every movie. The super-agent dynamic has become clichéd and it makes the writing come off as lazy.

Colombiana may have worked if they had given us some scenes of the uncle training her (everyone loves a good training montage) and skipped out on the forced love interest that which nothing to the movie.

I am hoping that Zoe will get another chance at headlining an action movie being that brown women in this type of role are virtually nonexistent… I think the last one I saw was Sanaa Lathan in AVP. Still if you like action and a good femme fatale lead, you may want to give this a shot. Just don’t expect a well thought out story and beware of plotholes!