AVA - The Story of an Assassin with a Conscience

It was one of those weekends where I went back to browsing through TV cables on Saturday night (as I used to do years ago) and I came across this movie which I have seen its poster somewhere. Anyway since I have not seen it and looking at the brief synopsis seemed intriguing, I decided to watch it on Fox Movies channel. Well here's more on the movie.

Brief Story Line

Ava Faulkner (Jessica Chastain - It Chapter Two, Miss Sloane etc) was an assassin working for an organization led by Simon (Colin Farrell - Artemis Fowl, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them etc) with her handler Duke (John Malkovich - Mile 22, Unlocked etc). After various missions, Ava started to question the reason for assassinating her targets which prompted Duke to ask her to take personal leave.

Ava went back to Boston and meet with her estranged mother (Geena Davis - The Accidental Tourist, Thelma & Louis etc) and her sister Judy (Jess Weixler - The Son TV series etc) plus also her ex boyfriend Michael (Common - The Informer, Smallfoot etc). 

Because of her challenging the management, Ava became the target of the organization and she had to save herself and her family. So how would the story conclude? Find them all in this action thriller movie.

End of Brief Story Line

At first I thought this movie had a lot of promises. The early part showed glimpse of what I thought would be interesting. But then as it progressed, I got a bit confused with the plot. I felt the story telling was a bit messy with going back and forth in time without clear indication of which is which. Luckily though, once the flash backs stopped, the story became easier to understand.

For me the plot of this story was quite simple and it may not have been the most original, but it was still intriguing to see how it played out. The star of this film was definitely Jessica Chastain who was able to show nice moves and agility resulting to convincing action scenes performed by her (or possibly her stunt woman). But whoever it was, the actions were the highlight of this movie. I loved that scene in Riyadh and the climax.

I was also quite surprised seeing many big names in this movie considering it did not seem like a huge budgeted Hollywood movies. You could see John Malkovich, Colin Farrel, Geena Davis and there was even Joan Chen (The Last Emperor, Red Rose White Rose etc). However, I personally thought that their roles could have been played by anybody of lesser calibre. Nevertheless, it was interesting to see them in here. 

As I said above, I think the story telling was confusing. If it was not done in a back and forth manner, I believe it would have been better. I read that the movie was panned by critics, which I could understand. Although I hardly thought it was justified having only < 20% approval as I think there were worse films out there.

Overall this might not have been a great assassin movie, but it has sufficient action sequence to satisfy those who love hand to hand combat like myself. You could definitely enjoy Chastain's performance in here. With a short duration of only 97 minutes including closing credits which did not have any mid or post end credit scene, it should be a perfect time killer if you do not have any other option. 

Mike's movie moments rating: 3 out of 5 stars