Erik Heller (Eric Bana) raises and trains his daughter Hanna (Saoirse Ronan) to be the perfect assassin and to kill Marissa Wiegler (Cate Blanchett), the evil CIA
witch that killed her mother and wants Erik dead. He raised her in the wild snowy forests of Finland below
the Arctic Circle. She has old pictures of her mother and a copy of the Grimm Fairy Tales (in German) to keep
her company at night. Erik tells her one day that she can flick a switch to activate a signal box and Wiegler will
come for her. He also warns her that there is no turning back once she does it. She flips the switch
and the CIA sends special ops soldiers to retrieve her. She ends up in an underground facility in Morocco
which she escapes leaving a high body count in her wake.
Hanna makes friends with a bratty teenage girl who is on a trip with her
bohemian parents and her little brother. Hanna also discovers so much about the world like TV and electricity.
A passport is a foreign concept to her when she is presented with one in a scene. Her father has
sent Hanna on a mission to kill Wiegler (and meet him at the house of the Grim Fairy Tales in Berlin)
which goes wrong and Wiegler is on a mission to track both Hanna and Erik down. She recruits a creepy German club owner
and his two goons to find Hanna while Wiegler focuses CIA assets on Erik.
HANNA
is a Grimm Fairy tale re-imagined as a modern action thriller with a techno score by the Chemical Brothers.
Director Joe Wright crafts a movie through visuals and sounds as we witness the world different from what Hanna imagined (since
she only knows stuff through books and what survival and killing skills her father taught her). HANNA is a ride that
starts slow before kicking into high gear when she is thrown into the world. Cate Blanchette is the evil witch, a role
which she delights in playing. The film does belong to the visuals and sounds along with the performance of Saoirse Ronan which is contained and sometimes even
explosive. The various locations wrap you up more in this surreal tale which happens to be one of my favorite films
of this year (along with PAUL). Also the movie doesn't overstay it's end (and I guessed what the last shot of the film
before credits would be). I definitely can't wait for HANNA to come to DVD and Blu-ray.
this movie review is (c)4-8-2011 David Blackwell and cannot be reprinted without permission.
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