Red Sparrow

Eine Geschichte darüber, wie die junge Balletttänzerin Jennifer Lawrence von einem Tag auf den anderen zur besten russischen Spionin wurde. Natürlich musste sie eine Ausbildung für junge Rekrut*innen in einem ethisch kontroversen russischen Institut "The Sex Games“ absolvieren. Ein völlig misslungener Versuch um einen raffinierten Cold-War-Thriller mit Stimmung und einer romantischen Linie. Ein scheinbar reifes Spionage-Drama, in dem die Chemie zwischen der russischen Agentin und dem US-amerikanischen Agenten zu schwach ist. Der Film kann sich nicht erlauben, nur auf ihr zu bauen. Mit seiner mutigen Länge bietet er nämlich nichts anderes an – weder eine Thriller-Spannung noch Action. Lawrence mit ihrem kindlichen Gesicht ist das Casting-Fuck-Up des Jahres. Matthias ist als einziger in seiner Rolle glaubwürdig, er ähnelt sogar Putin! Die Musik "inspirierte“ sich von Goldsmiths Basic Instinct und soll den verführerischen sexuellen Ton des Films betonen. Der Actionfilm Atomic Blonde, der nichts vortäuscht, geht aus diesem Duell klar als Sieger hervor. (04.03.2018)

I get it, Jennifer Lawrence was meant to play a completely merciless and emotionless murderer. It’s a shame she is like that in most of her movies. Another issue I saw in the fact that it is an espionage thriller, but at the end I was thoroughly confused about what happened. For an espionage thriller there was extremely little suspense and action, so during those two and a half hours I almost wondered whether to cook dinner or start dusting. Luckily it was saved by the great beauty of Jennifer, and her two acting colleagues – Joel Edgerton and Matthias Schoenaerts. I respect them so I finished to movie to the end and I admit that it is at least average. (14.07.2018)

Dominika, a former ballerina, has been trained in a spy school and has become a professional seductress. Now she is tasked with getting close to an American agent and discovering who in Russian intelligence is passing him information. But her mission is complicated by her superiors and perhaps her true feelings. Red Sparrow is a rather intimate spy thriller, and a bit too long. It tries to be sexy and provocative, most of the time it’s uncomfortably aloof, cold, and unnecessarily plodding. And not very entertaining. (26.07.2018)

Sexy Jennifer Lawrence in an erotically cool spy thriller. I definitely think that if David Fincher had been in charge (he was supposed to direct it) it would have been a bigger hit, but it's still a decent thriller that isn't afraid of nudity and blood. Jennifer Lawrence is very sexy here and shows up full frontal naked, which will please many a male eye, as will the traditionally excellent Joel Edgerton. The hard training Jennifer undergoes in Russia to become a Red Sparrow is filmed very effectively, the psychological weight and erotic tension is omnipresent. At times the 140-minute running time drags in certain sequences and some editing wouldn't hurt, but I didn't find myself downright bored. The final torture and the denouement are excellent. A solid film that avoids the mainstream thanks to its eroticism and brutality and offers an unconventional story that hasn't been in cinemas for a while. 75% (15.03.2018)

A solid, old-school-style spy thriller. The director, Lawrence, knows what he’s doing, everything looks great and the big budget is obvious, but the pace is very slow and sometimes unnecessary twists drain the movie's power. Jennifer is appropriately stiff or even machine-like (so much that you wonder how much she’s just acting), but at the same time incredibly unattractive – nobody would want to get in her bed. The controversial nude scene really is superfluous and the movie could have done without it. Howard’s music is great. And Schoenaerts really does look a bit like Putin. (07.09.2019)

The American take on the Russian state apparatus is compelling, delivered with respect, and most fans of gritty spy movies will find it to their liking. The secret services in Russia are portrayed as a power-hungry, hard and uncompromising hierarchy of alpha males and females, both decision-makers and enforcers; like a creeping silent force, insidious and yet mesmerizing. This is exactly what the agent, played by Jennifer Lawrence, tries to portray very ably. Another one of her bolder roles in a minimalist and quite raw film with a solid plot, a great modern "cold war" atmosphere and a couple of scenes of explicit violence. Only the hint of romance is a bit too much, but if you take it all as part of the plan, you can turn a blind eye to it. Matthias Schoenaerts is superb as always and Charlotte Rampling is to die for as a demonic teacher. (03.03.2018)

Ein angenehmer Oldschool-Spionagethriller, in dem es nicht um Action geht, sondern um Spannung und darum, wer, wen, warum und wie überlistet. Der Film hat mir gefallen und Jennifer Lawrence und Joel Edgerton waren super. Besonders hervorheben möchte ich den Soundtrack von James Newton Howard – er hat sich stark von Tschaikowski inspiriert und wenn man seine Ouvertüre in einem Konzert der klassischen russischen Musik aufführen würde, würde kaum jemand bemerken, dass sie da nicht hingehört. (24.03.2019)

A top-rate psychological spy thriller. Although it doesn’t go very deep in its portrayal of the relationship between the two lead characters and escalates rather inconspicuously, it’s very unpredictable in the way it continuously taps on motifs that are smartly exploited without disrupting the coherence of its world and its deliberate detachment and mistrust. The runtime is not a problem, Lawrence ingeniously and effectively overlays condensed events with cross-cuts (the opening sequence is one of the year’s best) or overlapping multiple timelines (characters discuss a plan while the viewer is already watching its execution). Also, the film is a patch for the still absent psychologisation through sexual tension, which is sometimes treated rudely and violently (the conditions in the training facility can not be believed), but also sensitively and systematically when it comes to the development of the protagonist (and dramatizes the relationship between the main couple). Although I was a little disappointed by the twist regarding the identity of the western mole, which stinks of fairytale, the climax was nonetheless good and surprising. Another thing worth praise is the sophisticated audiovisual aspect, it might be par for the course, but there haven’t been many better looking movies in the cinema this year. 80% (03.02.2019)

Auf Red Sparrow hatte ich mich sehr gefreut, und der Film hat mir sehr gefallen, es sind keine reinen fünf Sterne, aber weil ich mich so wie einige Figuren im Film hübsch einlullen ließ, tendiere ich nach oben. Jennifer Lawrence konnte ich lange nicht auf den Geschmack kommen, außer ihrer wundervollen sexy Stimme. Doch nach American Hustle änderte ich meine Meinung, in Red Sparrow verkünde ich ein Lob sei ihr. Und die Auswahl der Nebenrollen? Kongenial - Jeremy Irons, Mathias Schoenaerts und Charlotte Rampling - hervorragende Gestalten. Zu all dem noch die hübsche musikalische Begleitung. Hoffentlich erleben wir eine Fortsetzung. (03.04.2018)

In anticipation of a new Hanna or Atomic Blonde, I was richly bored for a good third of the film before I realized that the expectations might have been the problem. And yet it was as if the film had anticipated as much, and when the protagonist moves to a secret training center where, instead of spy training she's treated to a stage from The 120 Days of Sodom, she complains about it the exact same way we do. The quicker you tune in to the channel of such a slightly different (yet in some ways almost classic, canon-adherent), reflective spy film, the more forgiving you become of the film. It's not easy when Joel Edgerton simply doesn't have much acting range and Jennifer Lawrence (again) looks the whole time like someone told an inappropriate joke in front of her. However, a few fairly unique scenes, occasional explosions of unexpected violence in an otherwise pretty polished area in front of the camera, and one brutal symphony involving several sharp objects and a potato peeler at least ensure that you might not forget the film entirely. 3-4, but we have to take care of pure genre flicks, so I’m rounding up. (01.06.2018)

Too bad that so many of Jennifer Lawrence’s nude selfies "leaked" online, otherwise the film could have been saved by her nude scenes, but this way I was just bored. In the role of Dominika, she once again proved that her poker face can compare with the likes of Arnold Schwarzenegger, Ben Affleck and, after his cosmetic enhancements, Mickey Rourke. The film was full of clichés, my “favorite” one being how you can easily tell that Russians are the bad guys. The chief of military must wear leather boots, and anyone who would otherwise be in doubt, is suddenly clear. If espionage went the way it was shown in the film, the world would be much more fun. My takeaway from more than two hours of boredom - ballerinas are not what they seem to be. (08.09.2018)

I didn't know what to expect, but in the end I got a pretty dry, emotionless story with some pretty good acting, especially the cameos in the supporting roles. I thought it would be more action-packed, but it's more of a thriller, almost psychological, which I don't think worked as well. It simply didn't do anything for me. (03.03.2018)