Cataleya (Zoe Saladna) witnessed the murder of her parents at the hands of the Colombian drug cartel.   She escapes and gives info to the CIA which her parents were killed over.  She gets into the USA and plans revenge.   She if trained to kill by a man her father regarded as family.  15 years later, Cataleya is killing the people responsible for the death of her parents.   She leaves the drawing of an orchid on each body as a message to them.  Her top two targets are Marco (Jorid Molla) and his boss Don Luis.   On the trail of catching Cataleya is FBI Agent Ross (Lennie James.   She also keeps her lover (Michael Vartan in a very underused role) in the dark and reveals nothing about herself (in true movie fashion, he gets her picture and it starts a chain reaction of events).

COLOMBIANA is the latest action film from director Olivier Megaton.  He directs some great action (but still it doesn't approach the coolness of the hotel shoot out in RED SIREN- an earlier film from Megaton).    Some reviewers complain about the PG-13 rating, but I bet there will be an unrated cut on DVD and Blu-ray.   Films are unfortunately driven sometimes by a PG-13 rating to get more seats in the cinema to get more money from the investment in their film (sometimes this thinking backfires).    It is an entertaining B level action thriller which originally started as the sequel to LEON THE PROFESSIONAL (according to an interview with director Olivier Megaton), but countless delays and Gaumont's stalling led co-writer Luc Besson to recycle some of the elements from MATHILDA (the name of the sequel Luc Besson wanted to create for actress Natalie Portman) with his frequent co-writer Robert Mark Kamen.  

COLOMBIANA isn't as great as THE PROFESSIONAL or Megaton's own RED SIREN, but it does reach some the same action thrills as seen in THE TRANSPORTER films or TAKEN.   The action is teh highlight of this film as Megaton creates a slick action film with some of the holes you see in Luc Besson's scripts to go along with it.   Saladana continues to rise as a genre star and I look forward to see her in other action and sci-fi films

SPECIAL FEATURES:

THE MAKING OF COLOMBIANA-  a portrait of director Olivier Megaton and how he directs a  movie

CATALEYA'S JOURNEY-   focusing on the actress who plays young Cataleya

ASSASSINS-  all about the characters

TRAINING A KILLER-  promo fluff about how Zoe Saldana must be focused for this character

TAKING A RIDE-  this featurette focuses on filming in three countries and how it is to work with each crew.

FINAL ANALYSIS:  COLOMBIANA is a movie to watch for the action.  I don't quite get into it being an emotional film like director Megaton says about it.   He is a very capable director who knows how to shoot a great action film.

this review is (c)12-21-2011 David Blackwell and cannot be reprinted without permission.  send all comments to feedback@enterline-media.com