Cinema Toast: ‘Red Sparrow’ and ‘Death Wish’

Red Sparrow (R)

Starring: Jennifer Lawrence, Joel Edgerton, Matthias Schonaerts, Charlotte Rampling, Mary Louise Parker, Jeremy Irons

Directed by: Francis Lawrence

“Modernizing” the La Femme Nikita trope by adding scenes of porno/voyeuristic kinky sex and torture, the filmmakers have the gall to advertise this as a “female empowerment film.” In a nutshell, it is the calculated debasement of Dominika (Lawrence), a beautiful and talented Bolshoi Ballet dancer who loses everything after a graphic onstage injury. Faced with the prospect of being thrown into the streets with her invalid mother, she agrees to help her leering uncle with “an assignment.” It turns out she’s the hotel bedroom bait in a Secret Service assassination, and the only witnesses allowed to stay alive afterward are members of “The Agency.” Faced with the choice of “sign-up or die,” she chooses life and ends up in a torture school run by a sadistic headmistress (Rampling), who tells Dominika, “Your body belongs to the state.” After way too many scenes of gratuitous, voyeuristic sex and violence, Dominika is sent to Budapest to seduce an American spy (Edgerton), who may (or may not) know the identity of a Russian double agent. This last bit never works, and just seems tacked on to the BDSM-themed torture-fest.

1 piece of ‘Did Jennifer Lawrence read the script before she said “yes?”’ toast.

(To view a trailer of the above films, visit Cinema Toast at www.Petaluma360.com. Comments? E-mail gilmansergh@comcast.net)