Red Sparrow

Based on a book by Jason Matthews, Red Sparrow follows follows Russian ballerina Dominika Egorova (Jennifer Lawrence) as she’s essentially forced to become a spy by her ambitious uncle (Matthias Schoenaerts’ Vanya Egorov) – with Dominika’s first mission, after completing a stint at a “sparrow” school for spies, requiring her to win the trust of a C.I.A. agent named Nate Nash (Joel Edgerton). Director Francis Lawrence, along with scripter Justin Haythe, delivers a striking opening stretch detailing Dominika’s fall from grace as a ballerina and her initial exploits at the aforementioned school, with the undeniably watchable atmosphere perpetuated by star Lawrence’s solid work and the ongoing inclusion of compelling sequences. (And this is to say nothing of the top-notch efforts of the movie’s stellar supporting cast, which counts Jeremy Irons, Ciarán Hinds, and Charlotte Rampling among its ranks.) It’s only as Red Sparrow progresses into its increasingly meandering midsection that one’s interest begins to flag, with the movie’s ludicrous 140 minute running time (!) paving the way for a wheel-spinning second act that’s rife with meaningless, uninteresting spy chatter. The far-from-engrossing vibe is compounded by a quizzical dearth of action or suspense oriented interludes, and it does, as a result, become more and more difficult to work up any real interest in or sympathy for the central character’s exploits (which proves especially problematic by the time the twist-laden finale rolls around). A climactic interrogation sequence, which boasts an intensity and brutality that’s sorely absent from the rest of the proceedings, arrives far too late to compensate for a mostly dull middle hour, and it’s finally impossible to label Red Sparrow as anything more than an overlong, underwhelming thriller that’s predominantly, incongruously devoid of thriller attributes.

** out of ****