Many people point to Liam Neeson’s role in “Taken,” as the pivotal turning point for action movie stardom. Back then, it seemed improbable that a 56-year-old would make a huge action franchise. However, it meant very little. Older men have been the main characters of these movies since there were action movies — Roger Moore was 57 in View to a Kill and Sean Connery was 66 in The Rock; even Daniel Craig was 53 when No Time to Die came out looking at James Bond actors only. However, older male action stars are not new; more so is the case with older female ones.
For example, apart from Helen Mirren’s wildly enjoyable performances in Red (when she was in her sixties), Jamie Lee Curtis’ recent Halloween films, and Michelle Yeoh’s return as an older lady who has acted Everything Everywhere All at Once aged 59 years old, there really hasn’t been an older female action star. She just did so now at sixty-two years of age and Allison Janney proved there should be. Her performance might be better than the movie itself but Netflix movie is still very interesting because of that.
Lou is played by Janney – the titular character is a crotchety old woman living ten miles outside town alone. Lou represents solitude itself while sometimes making her seem like a cheap imitation of Laurie Strode’s elderly version played by Lee Curtis in the Halloween reboots most of the time, Janney manages to give Lou her own personality though this script often tries portraying her otherwise She seems like one tough cookie; someone tough enough to drag a gutted buck over the ground through dense forest after killing some food for winter fill up Chases are involved whenever it concerns hunting trips with Hannah & Vee’s dog-owner means landlord (who happens to be Vee) being another character Jane plays such roles quite reservedly but she leaves spaces between words that reflect a much deeper understanding of herself than what the pathetic script allows her to have.
This is because Lou seems more like she’s in hiding instead of being an elderly resident. Set during the early 80s after the infamous Iran Contra scandal, Lou knows much more about it than most average Americans then and even now (and that is not a compliment). For almost three decades, she was an agent with the CIA who has classified documents and film negatives as proof (the film handles this issue in a rather clichéd manner so much so that one wonders why they didn’t simply write “Zapruder” on the canister).
However, in fact, she’s not a glamorous, romanticized spy, the film starts off with her getting ready to take her own life. Her suicide is interrupted by her tenant Hannah after Vee is kidnapped by the father, previously presumed dead. At first it seems like an immensely stupid and over contrived coincidence but turns out to be more than what it looks like, as the paternal kidnapper also has a CIA background. He had faked his death while working for the agency since he was going to get arrested for sadistic torture and killing of civilians (which seem hardly illegal when you are CIA) and now he wants his daughter back. Lou decides that after a career of ruining lives at CIA it’s time to do some good in the world so she gears up with a plan to find him and save Vee.
The first thing seen in this movie is Janney’s silhouette through a door frame; immediately bringing to mind that John Wayne classic The Searchers its iconic final shot. This sets up an interesting way of introducing a film about an old man killer hunting down an abducted child though changing gender roles and presenting similar themes–broken families and recurring cycles of violence. If Phillip being violently unstable while Hannah formerly his wife plus their daughter Vee are narrative dots then violent Lou connects them.
However, there really isn’t much emotional connection being made here either. Jurnee Smollett (playing Hannah here) is great on her own but does not have much chemistry with anyone else in this flick even her own offspring on screen as Ridley Asha Bateman appears surprisingly unmoved throughout everything that happens around her). However that lack of chemistry actually makes sense for Lou because Janney plays someone who has been broken apart by life thus coming across as uncaring enough not destroy any other person anymore. On par with being such bold-blooded killer as well as she is excellent in all other aspects regarding Lou too (and this excellence will be continually mentioned in any review of Lou), Janney is subtly showing how far she wants to go to relate with them, before immediately shutting down every form of vulnerability.
Essentially, the only other character who has lines worth speaking of is Phillip. The mad, dangerous kidnapper, played by Logan Marshall-Green, gets the impossible task of being a narrative device. In 2015’s The Invitation and its awesome but underseen sequel Upgrade, Marshall-Green excelled; doing his best on a poorly developed and generally confusing character is still not enough. Phillip’s motivations and actions make it seem as though he is in an entirely different movie which has nothing to do with Lou just like all the rest. At least that makes sense for Lou too.
It hardly matters that most of the time it’s ridiculous and rather emotionally hollow since Janney’s dedicated performance holds one enthralled throughout while director Anna Foerster shows expertise in queer action film making. Great action scenes from Marvel’s Jessica Jones and Westworld were directed by her while every Roland Emmerich explosion-fest except for The Patriot was co-edited by her so she knows what kind visuals would be needed for Lou. Unfortunately there are really only two or three scenes that unleash her potential, although they are quite remarkable.
Among Janney, Foerster, and the fight choreographers, the three action scenes are the best parts of Lou apart from Janney’s brooding. This movie’s battles are brutal and usually very authentic due to the utilization of rain, campfire, or even shadows among other things to heighten each scene. However, some of these fights have none of that John Woo/Wick grace but they do have a lot of that bone-crushing bloody truthfulness. Janney is completely convincing as a killer if somewhat rusty and therefore more dangerous because she has nothing to lose.
Lou starts out wanting to die in this flick and all the hurting and suffering she does or gets might just get her wish granted.
The final set piece—though pretty ridiculous—and fight sequence too is done really well with tight editing and beautiful cinematography. Just as the film begins with a nod to The Searchers it ends with a direct reference to the famous battle on the beach at the end of Samurai III: Duel at Ganryu Island, perfect film where two morally compromised characters are drawn toward an inevitable deadly duel. The sound cuts out during this fight leaving only an opera-like quality about it; all bring home earlier mentioned theme regarding cyclical violence and filial damage by taking them into poetic excess.
Lou is hoping for a thriller film but should have been an outright action movie. If Foerster had made Lou more than just these great action scenes then it would have been quite good – truly worthy of Janney’s great performance.
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