Saoirse Ronan stars in “Hanna” alongside Cate Blanchett and Eric Bana. The film opened everywhere on Friday. | Focus Features
“Hanna” is a gritty action movie about a girl who has been raised all her life in the German wilderness away from the modern world by her father to be an extremely intelligent and deadly assassin. Once she is in her teens, her father unleashes her unto the world.
The story is great — it strips down the spy genre to its very basics, as there are no cool gadgets, spy satellites, fancy cars or exotic women to distract you.
Whereas most action movies today are often filled with unrealistic explosions or impractical fight sequences, “Hanna” gives you simple but well-executed action scenes that still manage to keep you on the edge of your seat without having to bring out the wire acrobatics.
As opposed to movies like the Bourne Identity trilogy, where there seems to be limitless waves of government agents dispatched to take on the hero, the scale of the opposition in the film seems small, with only two main antagonists and maybe a handful of extra henchmen. This allows time for the characters to really develop, proving that less is more.
Saoirse Ronan proves that a woman can be a great action star without having to look like an Angelina Jolie or a Cameron Diaz. Ronan is, for lack of a better word, hardcore because she plays a 17 year-old girl who can take on creepy German hitmen, military guards, and shoots back raw eggs Rocky-style without blinking an eye. Her portrayal of Hanna is flawless — she fulfills her role as a girl who has been cut off from the world her whole life well. Sure, she can kill a man in seconds without blinking an eye, but she alsohas trouble participating in everyday social interactions. It’s exactly what the story described and it’s exactly what Ronan delivered.
Eric Bana plays Hanna’s father, Erick, who trains her all her life to be a killing machine and eventually sends her out on a mission to kill a CIA agent named Marissa, played by Cate Blanchett.
Though his speaking parts are limited, what parts he does have are definitely on point. In fact, Bana hasn’t kicked this much you-know-what since his role in “Munich.”
Blanchett is absolutely ruthless as Marissa, and she shows her versatility in this performance as a CIA agent. With a southern bell accent that is only a mask for a persona that is just plain evil, Marissa tracks down Hanna across Europe and takes care of any loose ends. Armed with a silenced pistol, a charming accent and her green shoes, Blanchett’s Marissa is someone the audience will love to hate.
Where movies like “Salt” have fallen short in creating a believable female action hero and fight sequences, “Hanna” picks up the pieces and shows that girls can hit just as hard as the boys. This is a great movie, and another great film to start us off for the summer.
