Sasha Luss is a pansexual international super-model. She is also one of the KGB's top assassins, able to take down a room full of trained killers with whatever comes to hand. She does not like her second job, but the only way out is death.... until CIA Moscow station chief Cillian Murphy offers her a three-year deal as a double agent, after which she can retire to Hawaii.

Luc Besson's very unlikely and stylish thriller has some amazing fight choreography, thanks to Alain Figlarz's stunt choreography and Thierry Arbogast's fluid camerawork, but I found the combination of Besson's Metal Hurlant visual sensibilities and Russian pessimism not particularly compelling.

This didn't get much play. The story is there were accusations of sexual misconduct, after which the studios distanced themselves. While that is a possibility, I thought Besson has done this sort of movie before and better, that Miss Luss lacks the ability to carry her role, and that a surprisingly frumpy Helen Mirren as her trainer/handler is not what anyone really wishes to see. With a flop on their hands, the distributors simply chose not to throw good money after bad. Take your choice.

Luc Besson's latest thriller is a big step up from that lame CGI fest sci-fi movie he made which I won't even bother naming. However, compared to the director's classics of old this is slim pickings indeed, and even compared to modern material like RED SPARROW (with which it shares many similarities) it's not particularly good. Besson's direction remains entertaining but he wrote this one too and it does get very convoluted as time goes on; the constant jumping back and forth in time is excessive and distracting, and the running time is around half an hour too long too. The ending in particular goes down the 'one twist after another' route and becomes particularly tedious and ridiculous in equal measure. However, it's not all bad. The photogenic lead actress gives a solid turn, well supported by seasoned hands including Luke Evans, Cillian Murphy and Helen Mirren; there's plenty of style; the spy material is always interesting at the very least, and Besson stages a single lengthy and exemplary set-piece in a restaurant which draws in slick choreography, JOHN WICK-style martial arts and plentiful shooting into a satisfying whole. A shame there wasn't more like that and less of the clever-clever, slightly tedious plotting throughout.

In 1985 Moscow, CIA agent Lenny Miller (Cillian Murphy) loses nine operatives to KGB chief Vassiliev. Years later, Anna (Sasha Luss) is struggling in life and signs up for the Russian Navy. KGB agent Alex Tchenkov (Luke Evans) recruits her to be an assassin under the supervision of Olga (Helen Mirren).

It's another hot assassin movie from Luc Besson. La femme Nikita is almost 30 years ago. He's like an old painter who keeps returning to the same style over and over again. He's trying something a little grittier and a little more real. It's not his lane. His lane is hot girl doing wild actions with simplistic story. He tries to add layers to the story. At last, he's no Graham Greene which brings to mind the acting skills of model-turned-actor Sasha Luss. She tries and the character is essentially her without the killings. She's surprisingly functional but she's no Meryl Streep. Finally, I would try to clean up the constant time-jumps in the plot. They are supposed to be shocking reveals but they mostly confuse and are unnecessary. If he does a straight forward timeline, the movie may actually gain some tension of wondering if anybody can be trusted. He's probably not capable of doing the truly gritty espionage movie. Somebody should do a film retrospective of his hot female assassin movies.