Atomic Blonde * * *

Lorraine The Spy is hard on the boys...

    I once read that in reality spying is lonely and boring.  Just keeping a low profile whilst worming your way through the public service in another country.  But, as we know,  guns and back alley killings and dealing with lowlifes and sleeping with hotties and staying in the penthouse of a five star hotel makes it so much more fun to watch.

...but very nice to the girls. 
Both are fun to watch

     And there’s plenty of slapping, punches, stabbings and shootings in Atomic Blonde.  Baddies being thrown down the stairs, banging their head on each concrete step, not to mention  a corkscrew to the jugular or a bullet to the head. Then there’s car chases with plenty of smashes (I had no idea a Lada could go that fast).  Then there’s a lead character that looks like a model, and she’s having it off with an equally beautiful French girl (Ooh la la!) Hey, what more do you want?

     Well, a plot that’s a bit easier to follow would be good.

      I mean, I got the gist of it and I suppose that’s enough to enjoy the action as the baddies get their comeuppance and the girls slip into bed. But when someone says “Ha ha, tricked ya, I’m working for the other side”, or one of the principal characters realises another might be a double agent, it gets a bit muddy, and after a while you start to think “Actually I don’t give a damn whose side you’re on anymore.  Just keep up the action (both types).”

    Atomic Blond is set in 1979 in Berlin, just before the wall came down.  Charlize Theron plays Lorraine, an English spy.  We open with her at the end of an assignment, she’s back in London sitting through a tough de-briefing.  She has to explain the death of a spy who was supposed to be one of England’s finest.   You can’t help but feel a bit sorry and concerned for her as she looks an awful mess with cuts and bruises all over her body.  As she narrates her story we fade into it and see it in flashback.

    Ten days earlier she’d been sent to Berlin to meet up with another English spy and pick up a list of the top spies for the other side.  But predictably things don’t go quite so smoothly. The Russian mafia get involved (why they’d be interested I have no idea) and then the KGB get involved.  In the meantime we’re starting to have our doubts about the man she has to meet up with.

     It’s got comic book styling at times with graphics thrown up on the screen.  The recreation of the period with costumes and music and vehicles looks great.  Being 1979 There are hardly any mobile phones.  Lorraine has to get herself out of a jam and arrange meetings in hotel bars and sleazy Berlin clubs through notes and landline telephones.  Though they do use bugs and tracking devices.

    There’s plenty of action - and it’s brutal - and the story makes sense (sort of) when you consider it in retrospect; though sometimes I found it a bit confusing when watching it, which can spoil the ride.