Director: David Leitch
Starring: Charlize Theron, John Goodman, James McAvoy, Til Schweiger

There are two initial reasons why I wanted to see Atomic Blonde:

  1. Charlize Theron. Her and Tom Hardy kicked serious ass in Mad Max: Fury Road. It was genuinely the only movie that mattered in 2015. I also really loved her role opposite Patton Oswalt in the film ‘Young Adult’ back in 2011 (It’s one of my favorite movies that I want to review in a future post.) As far as I know with the previous films I saw, she is a talented actress with a good range. I was already 75% sold.
  2. David Leitch. The guy made his directorial debut with the first John Wick movie. Yes. The guy directed John. Fucking. Wick. He is also a stuntman and stunt coordinator. WHAT?? Goddamn. This guy is a legit badass. Needless to say I was pretty stoked he directed Atomic Blonde. That 65% went right to 300%.


It didn’t last.

Now I’m not saying that Atomic Blonde is a bad movie. You can get through those 115 minutes and get some enjoyment out of it. It was only after the third time watching it that I couldn’t help but notice areas where the movie came up short.

The first problem that I noticed was with Atomic Blonde’s story. John Wick had a very simple premise. Bad guys kill a hitman’s dog, hitman gears up for some serious payback, and the movie goes to town showing the violent badassery that is John Wick. That’s it. John Wick boils down to a very simple story that’s heavy on the action. Atomic Blonde on the other hand isn’t as easy to follow.

Tldr: The story starts with Lorraine Broughton (Charlize Theron) being interrogated during her debriefing session with her MI6 employers and CIA counterpart (John Goodman). She recounts her mission in a flashback (which is where most of the movie takes place), with bits where time jumps back to her debriefing momentarily. One of the MI6 agents is killed by a KGB agent who steals the list of aliases and names of agents. She’s tasked with retrieving the list and partners up with fellow MI6 agent David Percival (James McAvoy). She suspects Percival is working against her and believes him to be the double agent Satchel. MI6 wants her to find and assassinate Satchel, who has been leaking intelligence to the Soviets. Percival finds the KGB agent who stole the list, kills him, and takes the list for himself. He eventually finds the identity of Satchel and meets with the KGB to give them the list, which is caught on photograph by French intelligence agent Delphine LaSalle. Lorraine laters gets knowledge of Percival meeting with the Soviets and kills him, taking the list. It is later revealed that she doctored taped conversations with the KGB leader and spliced them with her conversations with Percival to make it look like they’ve been in cahoots for a while. Along with the photographs with Percival meeting with the KGB, Lorraine frames Percival as Satchel. She later kills the KGB guys Percival met with and in the end it’s revealed she actually works for the CIA. She leaves on a plane with John Goodman and the list.

That Tldr is the shortest summary I could make about the entire movie. Seriously. It was a very complicated plot with a surprising twist. I can understand people being confused with what’s going on. For me, I didn’t understand the importance of the list. Okay, so it contained the aliases and names of all agents and having it in the wrong hands would compromise and put them in danger. But why does the CIA need it? Why is it safer in their hands than with MI6? Both agencies aren’t above underhanded tactics in my opinion, so why does it need to belong to a specific agency? Also how did MI6 not catch on that Lorraine was double-crossing them? For a secret service bureau that’s supposed to be highly competent, they got totally played. If this was real would you want these guys to be the safeguard between you and the terrorists? I don’t think so. What was the point of the character Spyglass? Spyglass was a Stasi officer who originally stole and memorized the contents of the list. It’s probably a security issue to have two copies of the list. Shouldn’t the goal have been to have taken care of him originally in order to prevent him from leaking contents? Atomic Blonde’s story is what stopped this movie from being a great movie. There are a few plot holes that left me questioning what was the goal of the characters’ motivations or their reasoning for their actions. But I only caught this when I went through a second and third showings of the movie.

Action-wise Atomic Blonde was amazing. The fight scenes were well choreographed and I was surprised to learn that Charlize actually performed most of the stunts. I really liked the use of judo throws in the movie. The guys Charlize’s character goes up against are bigger and stronger and I liked that the stunts reflected how someone with a smaller frame would get tossed around a little and would have to use techniques that didn’t rely on brute force to get results. Stunt coordination is David Leitch’s area of expertise and he didn’t disappoint. The 80s aesthetic of the movie was a nice touch, seeing as it’s set in 1989. I’m a sucker for the outrun aesthetic that’s coming back in style. I love the soundtrack for the movie: David Bowie’s Cat People (Putting Out Fire) was really fitting to start the movie, George Michael’s ‘Father Figure’, the German version of Peter Schilling’s ‘Major Tom’, etc. The soundtrack was almost every iconic 80s pop/rock songs you can think of, which the studio probably paid an arm and a leg for licensing. Bonus points for getting Til Schweiger to star in a small role as the Watchmaker. (I have a soft spot for Inglourious Basterds)

I thoroughly enjoyed watching Atomic Blonde, despite falling short plot-wise. It’s not the greatest movie I’ve watched this year, but it’s a damn good time.

Recommendations: Definitely watch it. Although it may not be as enjoyable if you try watching it multiple times. Don’t expect the story to wrap up smoothly.
Rating: 8.3/10
Badassery Level: Hugo Stiglitz
Fun Fact: Charlize Theron and Keanu Reeves got to spar together due to the overlapping training schedules for Atomic Blonde and John Wick Chapter 2. Too bad Bane couldn’t join in.