STORY TOOLS

.45

By Cyril Pearl -- Video Business, 2/26/2007

THINKFILM
Street: April 24, Prebook: March 29
> Milla J. gets nasty in this inner-city revenge tale.

The last few years have seen Milla Jovovich bouncing back and forth between well-budgeted, effects-driven futuristic action films (the Resident Evil series, Ultraviolet) and respectable indie efforts (The House on Turk Street, Dummy). .45 leans toward the latter, offering a variation on the urban-styled Milla we saw in Spike Lee's He Got Game. This time around, Milla is Kat, an inner-city chick stuck in a dead-end relationship with her junkie-thief boyfriend (Angus MacFadyen). It takes one nasty night of drug-fueled domestic violence and a growing passion for one of her boyfriend's buddies (Stephen Dorff) to prompt Kat to take some serious, violent action of her own. MacFadyen and Jovovich are quite fine, each creating a genuinely colorful if unappealing character, and writer/director Gary Lennon knows how to keep his mean streets moving so viewers won't sink into the ugliness without some sort of narrative vindication.

Shelf Talk: The cover art features a leggy Jovovich in high heels brandishing a gun à la the one-sheet for La Femme Nikita, and that may very well spur sales. But don't be fooled: .45 is a tough and gritty urban drama about drugs, abuse, sex and revenge. So warn those who only like Milla when she's soft, sci-fi-ish and clad in Spandex.

Thriller, color, R (mature themes, violence, language, sexual situations, drug use), 97 min., DVD $27.98
Extras: director's commentary
Director: Gary Lennon
First Run: DVD premiere

» SUBMIT FEEDBACK

There are no comments posted for this article.

SPONSORED LINKS