Colombiana (2011)
Columbiana (2011) – Zoë Saldaña is just everywhere these days. It makes sense. She’s hot. She has charisma. Now she shows us she can be an action star. She plays Cataleya Restrepo, a woman whose parents are murdered in front of her as a child as an act of retaliation by a drug cartel. She escapes to the United States where she is raised in Chicago by her uncle Emilio (Cliff Curtis). Emilio is a hired killer and she tells him up front as a child she wants to be one as well so she can get revenge on her family’s killer. Three guesses as to whether or not she’s successful. This is another movie from the mind of Luc Besson, the writer/producer behind The Transporter and District B13 (also the writer/director of La Femme Nikita, Léon, and The Fifth Element). Directing is the awesomely-named action director Olivier Megaton (Transporter 3). Like most of the Besson-produced movies, plot is incidental, action is awesome, and characters are just developed enough so you care. It may not be high art, but it’s an entertaining time at the movies.
Persistence of Vision 