Jaime King lets out a volley of shots in a mysterious women’s lib action flick. Code Name Banshee has an ex-CIA assassin, her mentor and his daughter fleeing from an old nasty foe with a swarm of henchmen at the same time. The villain spends the movie ordering more infantrymen like they were pizzas. Code Name Banshee plays around with timelines that make no sense at all. It also uses weird flash-back cinematography that looks terrible. The blood splattering gunplay offers few thrills here and there. Violence is abundant as lady protagonists shred bad guys.
The first time we see Banshee (King), she is being interrogated at CIA. Her father and Caleb (Antonio Banderas), his partner, are both special ops who have been branded traitors after a mission gone wrong. While Banshee’s father was presumed dead when he went missing-in-action, nobody could find his body afterwards just as Caleb himself has disappeared; now there is 10 million dollar reward for his head placed by US government on him. But then, Banshee cannot believe what she is told by this government.
Three years later, Banshee becomes an assassin for hire. She makes use of a hacker called Kronos (Aleksander Vayshelboym) to facilitate her violent trade. In pursuit of a target through an office building, Banshee gets more than she expects. A previous buddy Anthony Greene (Tommy Flanagan) lies hidden there ready to pounce on her but really he wants to get back at Caleb who trained Banshee too well for Greene’s taste; how can one escape bullets? It isn’t just about escaping or shooting your way out of any situation with your mind on anything else other than what just happened moments ago because you may end up with some memories which might never go away completely even if you tried hard enough! So what really happened to her dad? She needs to find Caleb before Greene and discover the truth.
Code Name Banshee fails to give clear dates on which the events in the movie occurred. Speeches among themselves suggest that he has spent five years hiding. Banshee’s briefing claims three years later. I’m not sure, but this doesn’t make sense from the start. It is funny how CIA couldn’t catch Caleb and his sundry enemies even after trying so hard yet Banshee was able to trace his last known location using a conversation she had with him when they last met. There are inconsistencies in it, which are jarring throughout.
The film introduces another character that is almost as deadly as Banshee herself. In her teenage years, Caleb has given birth to Hailey (Catherine Davis), who seems to have come out of her mother’s womb with a sniper rifle pointing at someone. While she might not know anything about her dad being any kind of spy or anything else pertaining to his professional life, Hailey has been taught certain things by him as he had done for his former trainee: butt- kicking tactics! These two kill counts could fill a morgue between them. Their fight scenes are the best parts of the movie.
Amongst all characters, Scottish actor Tommy Flanagan’s Anthony Greene stands out tall above others in this flick. None of them look lively; everyone else is introverted and boring by contrast. As he unleashes torrents of abuse upon their heads in a thick accent that can barely be understood, Flanagan himself dominates every scene he appears in like nobody else on set did that day—especially if you saw him drinking continuously because it seemed never-ending supply from some sorta evil villain store where they keep drinks only meant for initiation into hell itself! If everyone had attacked all at once then surely Banshee would have run out ammo.
Jaime King does get action points for her dual-wielding assaults though! The killer seems to be a feminine version of Chow Yun-fat’s The Killer. Right from the beginning, code Name Banshee tries very hard to appear coherent. Besides, the ending gives rise to many unanswered questions. I’m not sure if this is just bad filmmaking or a set up for the next installment. Yale Productions, Banshee Productions, Bee-Hive Productions, and BondIt Media Capital are behind Code Name Banshee’s production.
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