‘Anna’ delivers perhaps the most complete, best-scripted female assassin movie in years

Posted on June 28, 2019

By MARK VIOLA

It’s not terribly uncommon these days to see a movie and be reminded of plenty of other films with very similar premises. Take “Anna” for instance, the new film from director Luc Besson (“The Professional,” “The Fifth Element”) about a Russian spy/assassin who finds herself in the quagmire that is international espionage.

Last year, we had “Red Sparrow” starring Jennifer Lawrence, a film that was enjoyable but wasn’t as deep as it thought it was. The year before that we had “Atomic Blonde” starring Charlize Theron, a film that had a wonderful sense of style but was weighed down by a script that was both relatively generic and overly convoluted.

As for “Anna,” it doesn’t have the ambitions of “Red Sparrow” or the style of “Atomic Blonde,” but it finds a nice mix of action and mystery, and it might actually be my favorite of the three because it tells the best — or at least the least-flawed — story of the bunch.

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