MOVIE: Red Sparrow movie is anything but chirpy

JENNIFER Lawrence recently angered the perpetually offended by choosing not to wear her coat during a photoshoot. But will her new film, ‘Red Sparrow’, have the same effect on audiences worldwide?

Lawrence plays Dominika Egorova, one of Russia’s most celebrated prima ballerinas and a devoted daughter to her sick mother. 

After discovering that her ballet partner boyfriend is swanning around with another dancer, Dominika cracks and exacts a violent revenge on them both. This prompts her slimy secret service serving uncle to offer Dominika a “get out of Siberia free” card, by signing her up to Russia’s elite team of seduction trainees, the ‘Sparrows’. 

And it’s while at her new training camp of temptation that Dominika learns how to extract secrets from potential targets by using her god given assets. Offended yet?

The movie is directed by Francis Lawrence (no relation) of ‘Hunger Games’ fame and written by Justin Haythe (‘The Lone Ranger’). 

Supporting actors include Joel Edgerton as the CIA agent charged with recruiting Dominika to the side of Uncle Sam, Matthias Schoenaerts as the creepy uncle, and Charlotte Rampling as Professor of persuasive techniques over at Sparrow school.

The story takes a while to get going and just when you think it has, it gets stuck in the mud of act two, unsure of what direction to take. 

It may be trying to emulate films like ‘Salt’ or ‘The Bourne Identity’, but the pace is too slow and the kick-ass count too low for that comparison to work. 

Or perhaps it’s striving to sit alongside a movie like ‘Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy’, but again the script isn’t strong enough or the intrigue great enough to warrant that position either. 

For lovers of the action/espionage/fly-around-Europe genre, this offering will no doubt fill a gap and feed a hunger, although it’s a light salad of a film that will leave you yearning for extra nourishment. 

And at 140 long minutes, there is way too much lettuce on the menu here. We give ‘Red Sparrow’ a review score of 2.5 stars.

Paul O’Rourke