Charlize Theron è l'agente veterana in missione Lorraine Broughton - atomica 'bomba' super bionda, anzi, platino, nella città più fredda - per David Leitch, esperto di arti marziali ed ex stunt-man, passato alla regia con il primo capitolo di John Wick - Preview in English by Andrew Barker (www.variety.com) - Dal 17 Agosto
"Il graphic novel è servito come ispirazione ed è stato un ottimo trampolino di lancio. Volevo attingere all’elemento noir tipico dello spy thriller ambientato nella Guerra Fredda, molto marcato nella storia originale, e volevo che questo aspetto fosse capovolto con l’aggiunta di musiche e colore, amalgamando il tutto con il dna della Berlino del 1989 e lo spirito della cultura pop del tempo, allontanandomi dalla combinazione classica di impermeabile e borsalino. Il graphic novel è stato molto influente per il concetto originale, ma poi mi sono chiesto come poter rendere il tutto più rock’n’roll".
Il regista David Leitch
(Atomic Blonde (The Coldest City); GERMANIA/SVEZIA/USA 2017; Thriller; 115'; Produz.: 87Eleven/Closed on Mondays Entertainment/Denver and Delilah Productions/Focus Features, Sierra/Affinity; Distribuz.: Universal Pictures International Italy)
Titolo in lingua originale:
Atomic Blonde (The Coldest City)
Anno di produzione:
2017
Anno di uscita:
2017
Regia: David Leitch
Sceneggiatura:
Kurt Johnstad
Soggetto: Basato sulla serie graphic novel The Coldest City (Oni Press) di Antony Johnston e Sam Hart. In Italia è uscito in anteprima nazionale il 3 Agosto con il titolo La città più fredda edito da Magic Press Edizioni.
Mentre il comunismo è al collasso e il muro di Berlino si sta sgretolando, una spia sotto copertura dell’MI6, il servizio segreto inglese, viene uccisa durante uno scambio di informazioni top secret dall’inestimabile valore: una lista con i nomi di tutte le spie in attività a Berlino. Ma nessun elenco viene ritrovato sul suo cadavere. L’MI6 manda l’agente veterana Lorraine Broughton a recuperare la lista. Si ritroverà in una polveriera alimentata da malcontento sociale, azioni controspionaggio, defezioni interrotte sul nascere e omicidi inconfessabili…
Cast: Charlize Theron (Lorraine Broughton) Sofia Boutella (Delphine Lasalle) James McAvoy (David Percival) John Goodman (Emmett Kurzfeld) Toby Jones (Eric Gray) Eddie Marsan (Spyglass) Bill SkarsgÃ¥rd (Merkel) Roland Møller (Aleksander Bremovych) James Faulkner (Capo C) Jóhannes Haukur Jóhannesson (Yuri Bakhtin) Sam Hargrave (James Gasciogne) Til Schweiger (Orologiaio) Barbara Sukowa (Coroner) Attila Ãrpa (Guardia di frontiera) Martin Angerbauer (Guardia di frontiera)
Musica: Tyler Bates
Costumi: Cindy Evans
Scenografia: David Scheunemann
Fotografia: Jonathan Sela
Montaggio: ElÃsabet Ronaldsdóttir
Effetti Speciali: Gabor Kiszelly (supervisore)
Makeup: Paul Pattison (direttore); Csilla Blake-Horváth (supervisore); Francesca Tolot (per Charlize Theron); Rita Balla e Winnie Mattheus
Casting: Marisol Roncali e Mary Vernieu
Scheda film aggiornata al:
12 Settembre 2017
Sinossi:
Germania: novembre 1989. Il Comunismo sta crollando, e con lui presto verrà giù il Muro di Berlino. Ma prima di questo ci sono altri intrighi da sbrogliare. Due settimane prima, un agente dell'M16 in incognito è stato ucciso a Berlino. Era in possesso di informazioni ottenute da una fonte a Est: una lista che sembra contenesse il nome di tutte le spie al lavoro a Berlino, da un lato e dall'altro della barricata. Sul suo corpo la lista non è stata trovata. Ora Lorraine Broughton (Charlize Theron), una spia esperta senza legami precedenti con Berlino, è stata inviata in questa polveriera di rivolta sociale, controspionaggio, defezioni fallite e assassinii segreti per recuperare la lista e salvare le vite degli agenti Britannici le cui identità sono in essa contenute.
Synopsis:
An undercover MI6 agent is sent to Berlin during the Cold War to investigate the murder of a fellow agent and recover a missing list of double agents.
The crown jewel of Her Majesty's Secret Intelligence Service, Agent Lorraine Broughton (Theron) is equal parts spycraft, sensuality and savagery, willing to deploy any of her skills to stay alive on her impossible mission. Sent alone into Berlin to deliver a priceless dossier out of the destabilized city, she partners with embedded station chief David Percival (James McAvoy) to navigate her way through the deadliest game of spies
Commento critico (a cura di ANDREW BARKER, www.variety.com)
Charlize Theron cuts a bloody swath through 1989 Berlin in this technically-dazzling yet fundamentally empty action pic.
Towards the end of “Atomic Blonde,†David Leitch’s hyperviolent, hyperstylized action pic set in Berlin just before the fall of the wall, Charlize Theron’s MI6 superwoman Lorraine Broughton is tasked with protecting a Stasi defector. He’s been wounded on the street, and she drags him into a building lobby. “Wait here,†she says, and proceeds to do brutal battle with waves of henchmen up an elevator, down a staircase, into an apartment, out of the apartment, with a gun, without a gun, with an unloaded gun, with stray bits of furniture, back out into the street, into a car, forward in the car, and then in reverse. The scene lasts a good five minutes, and does not contain a single obvious cut. It is worth the price of admission alone.
It’s a good
thing, too, because the rest of the film can’t help but feel like a long prelude to this single bravura display of technique. Sure, the film has style to burn, employing enough neon lighting to power the Las Vegas Strip for weeks. Theron casts an indomitable figure throughout, and the camera lingers on every contour of her face and body with an intensity that verges on the fetishistic. The action setpieces are every bit the equal of Leitch’s previous effort, “John Wick,†and “Atomic Blonde†should at least equal that film’s box office tally when it’s released this summer.
But so much uncut hardboiled posturing proves exhausting over a nearly two-hour runtime, and with zero emotional stakes and a plot that is both difficult and seemingly pointless to follow, there’s a fundamental emptiness behind all the flash. Virtuosic kick-ass filmmaking can be its own reward, but to paraphrase “Idiocracy,†you still
need to care about whose ass it is, and why it’s being kicked.
Based on Antony Johnston’s graphic novel “The Coldest City,†“Atomic Blonde’s†heroine is a blank slate of emotionless efficiency. A master of cold stares and even colder line readings, Lorraine’s entire diet appears to consist of frozen Stoli on the rocks. We watch her emerge nude from an ice bath more than once, and her introductory scene is shot with so much blue lighting it may as well have been filmed inside a glacier.
She’s looking very worse-for-wear as she undergoes debriefing with her MI6 superior (Toby Jones) and a no-nonsense CIA chief (John Goodman), narrating the events of the previous ten days in flashback. Her mission began in West Berlin: After the murder of a key agent, a list containing the names and whereabouts of every British intelligence asset has gone missing.
In order to find it, Lorraine has
to rendezvous with David Percival (James McAvoy), a debauched former Berlin bureau chief who’s recently “gone feral,†selling black market Jack Daniel’s and Jordache to track-suited East Berliners while they breakdance to Public Enemy. It’s never entirely clear where his sympathies lie, but he has access to an East German operative (Eddie Marsan) who has committed the entire list to memory, and he also lets Lorraine know that a double agent, known as Satchel, may be lurking somewhere in their midst.
Although Lorraine unwinds each night by listening to audio surveillance tapes, and starts each morning by taping a recording device to her torso (both while wearing expensive-looking lingerie, of course), we scarcely get to see her do much espionage work. Mostly, she shows up at various locations impeccably dressed, attracts the attention of various assassins, and dispatches them with spectacular displays of violence. It’s difficult to imagine anyone else pulling
off both the ice-queen glamour and punishing physical requirements of the role as well as Theron, who at this point has become as reliable an action hero as Schwarzenegger and Stallone ever were. Yet her character remains inscrutable, with few deeper motivations and even less in the way of backstory. At least we knew John Wick liked dogs.
The closest she comes to revealing a human being behind the killing machine exterior comes when she meets up with a wet-behind-the-ears French spy (Sofia Boutella), who quickly becomes her lover. But Leitch seems uninterested in developing relationships between his characters, leaving them to scamper about on parallel tracks until the hazy machinations of the plot conspire to bring them together. The film’s villains barely register, and bonus points to anyone who can explain exactly what Til Schweiger’s character is supposed to be doing here.
What Leitch is interested in, however, is brute spectacle
and jaw-dropping stuntwork, and on those counts he succeeds mightily. Cinematographer Jonathan Sela does excellent work with some very complex fight choreography, capturing the mayhem in deep, saturated tones, and the film presents a believable facsimile of 1989 Germany. A good two dozen pop singles from the decade make appearances, though strangely enough for a film that was only recently retitled “Atomic Blonde,†Blondie’s “Atomic†is not one of them.