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The Rhythm Section
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Wikipedia article
'The Rhythm Section' is a 2020 action thriller film directed by Reed Morano and with a screenplay by Mark Burnell based on his novel of the same name. 'The Rhythm Section' stars Blake Lively, Jude Law, and Sterling K. Brown, and follows a grieving woman who sets out for revenge after discovering that the plane crash that killed her family was a terrorist attack.
'The Rhythm Section' was released in the United States on January 31, 2020, by Paramount Pictures. It received mixed reviews from critics, who generally praised Livelys performance but were critical toward the plot. The film was a box-office bomb, having the worst wide-opening weekend of all time for a film playing on over 3,000 screens and, two weeks later, the biggest drop in screens ever when it was pulled from 2,955 of those, with Paramount projected to lose $3040 million.
Plot
Three years after her family's death in a plane crash, Stephanie Patrick has become a drug-addicted prostitute in a London brothel. She is approached by journalist Keith Proctor, who believes the plane crash was a terrorist attack that was covered up by the government. Stephanie leaves the brothel to live with Proctor and studies his research on the crash, which suggests that it was caused by a bomb made by a postgraduate engineering student named Reza, who attends university in London. Stephanie buys a black market gun and finds Reza in the university cafeteria, but cannot bring herself to shoot him. He mocks her and leaves, while also stealing her bag, which contains documents linked to Proctor. Hours later, she finds Proctor murdered in his apartment.
Through Proctor's notes, she discovers his source is disgraced MI6 agent Iain Boyd, whom she finds living in seclusion in Scotland. Boyd says Reza has vanished after her confrontation with him, and he reluctantly agrees to train her to hunt him down. Boyd says Reza is a bombmaker hired by a terrorist known as U-17, who carried out the bombing at the behest of an Islamist cleric who was later killed in a drone strike. The plane was downed to assassinate liberal Muslim reformer Abdul Kaif; Kaif's father Suleman funded Proctor's investigation into the crash. Stephanie assumes the identity of Petra Reuter, an assassin killed by Boyd whose body was never found.
Boyd sends her to Madrid to meet ex-CIA agent Marc Serra, who seemingly agrees to help. Stephanie asks Suleman to finance her mission, promising to avenge their son; he refuses, being unaware of Proctor's death and believing Proctor had extorted them. Kaif's mother Alia offers her the money. Stephanie assassinates several of the bombing conspirators. Serra tells her that U-17 is Reza himself. She tracks Reza to the South of France where he is preparing a bus bombing and, after a struggle on the bus, she leaves him to die as his own bomb explodes. She realizes that Serra has been U-17 all along and had been using her to kill all connections to him. She kills Serra with a syringe at his home, before visiting Alia to report her mission a success.
Boyd meets Stephanie in London and warns her to disappear, as MI6 have offered to take him back if he can eliminate the newly resurgent "Petra". Stephanie, having found peace, walks away.
Cast
* Blake Lively as Stephanie Patrick, a woman who lost her entire family in a plane crash, causing her to develop a drug addiction and become a prostitute to support her habit. Upon learning that the crash was staged by terrorists, she trains for months under a former spy, learning combat, intelligence-gathering, and disguise skills, and takes on the identity of freelance assassin Petra Reuter.
* Jude Law as Iain Boyd, a former MI6 operative who now lives in a cabin in rural Scotland. He becomes Stephanie's mentor and handler as she investigates her family's deaths.
* Sterling K. Brown as Marc Serra, a former CIA officer who now makes a living as a private intelligence broker
* Max Casella as Giler
* Geoff Bell as Green
* Richard Brake as Lehmans
* Raza Jaffrey as Keith Proctor, a freelance investigative journalist investigating the plane crash
* Tawfeek Barhom as Reza Mohammad, a terrorist responsible for making and planting the bomb that killed Stephanie's family
* Nasser Memarzia as Suleman Kaif, the father of one of the terror attack victims
* Amira Ghazalla as Alia Kaif, the mother of one of the terror attack victims. She provides funding to Stephanie's efforts to kill the bomber.
Production
The film was originally to be made by Stuart Ford, who had championed the film, EON Productions's Barbara Broccoli and Michael G. Wilson, longtime collaborators of Ford's and producers of the 'James Bond' films. In mid-2016 he suddenly sold his production company, IM Global, to Donald Tang. It became harder to get financing in place due to complicated Chinese rules that Tang's company had to follow, especially after Ford left a year later. Around that time, it was reported that Paramount Pictures had acquired the rights to the project. It had a production budget of around $50 million. The change in studio and financial delays meant that problems with Burnell's adaptation of his novel were never fully resolved.
Principal photography on the film began in December 2017 in Dublin, Ireland. Production was halted for six months after Lively broke her knuckle on the film set; insurance covered the extra costs this delay created. Sterling K. Brown joined the cast, as production resumed in Spain in mid-2018. In July 2018, filming took place in Almera with Law and Lively.
Steve Mazzaro composed the film score, with additional music provided by Lisa Gerrard, and Hans Zimmer serves as score producer to the film. Remote Control Publishing has released the soundtrack.
During post-production Broccoli and Wilson clashed with Morano and Lively over what kind of film they wanted 'The Rhythm Section' to be. Because of EON's involvement Paramount had expected a Bond-type movie with a female lead, which the director and star wanted, while EON sought to make a more character-focused, slower Euro-noir film like 'La Femme Nikita'. Ultimately the latter won.
Release
The film remained on the shelf. In late 2018 Paramount did a test screening in Sherman Oaks, which reportedly returned some of the worst results in the studio's history. The studio accordingly cut the film's advertising budget and scheduled it for release in late February 2019. That date was again postponed as the studio left any material from the film out of its preview of upcoming releases at CinemaCon, seen by observers as a sign Paramount had drastically reduced its expectations for 'The Rhythm Section'. The new November release date was postponed again to its final January 2020 date, so that Lively would be available to promote the film following the birth of her third child.
Reception
Box office
In the United States and Canada, the film was released alongside 'Gretel & Hansel', and was originally projected to gross $912 million from 3,049 theaters in its opening weekend. However, after making just $1.2 million on its first day (including $235,000 from Thursday night previews), projections were lowered to $3 million. It went on to debut to $2.8 million, marking the worst opening weekend ever for a film playing in over 3,000 theaters. It is estimated the film would lose the studio $3040 million. The film made $1 million in its second weekend, and then its third weekend made $25,602. It was pulled from 2,955 theaters (97.5%, 3,049 to 94), marking the largest third-weekend theater drop in history, beating 'The Darkest Minds' record of 2,679.Critical response
On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of based on reviews, with an average rating of . The website's critical consensus reads, "Blake Lively delivers an impressive lead performance, but 'The Rhythm Section' plods predictably through a story that could have used some flashier riffs." On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 45 out of 100, based on 36 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews." Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "C+" on an A+ to F scale, while PostTrak reported it received 2.5 out of 5 stars in their polling, with 35% of people saying they would definitely recommend it.Peter DeBruge, writing on the film in 'Variety', noted that Stephanieunlike the female assassin protagonists in 'Atomic Blonde', 'Red Sparrow', and 'La Femme Nikita'displayed a realistic "near-incompetence in the face of danger [that] makes her relatable in ways very few cinematic assassins have ever been." Richard Newby of 'The Hollywood Reporter' agreed: "Stephanie's training gives her just enough to get by, and her fighting skills are unrefined and ugly ... the film's car chase is one of collateral damage, close calls, and not a single smooth turn in sight. Even Stephanie's missions are largely botched incidents she barely makes it out of alive." He bemoaned the fact that a film that, despite its flaws, offered a fresher, more realistic take on the genre"the 'Blue Ruin' of espionage films"along with a heroine not from a comic-book franchise, had been so thoroughly rejected by the audiences and critics that regularly demanded something that defied conventions.
Notes
References
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