Rose has the poise to carry this action movie about an alpha mama collecting money from narcotics nasties, but it’s cartoonish
With the superhero’s gentrification of the blockbuster business, there is little space any more for big-budget original action movies. So up-and-comers such as Ruby Rose – seen earlier this year opposite Jean Reno in The Doorman – are forced to slug it out in the B-movie arena, from where there’s no guarantee they’ll ever emerge into stardom. Rose looks great – her androgynous poise reminiscent of the young
Angelina Jolie – and does a capable
Job carrying Vanquish. But you wonder if this noir-filtered, John Wick-apeing thriller is a little too stripped-back for its own good to advance her career.
Rose plays Victoria, carer to Damon (Morgan Freeman), a wheelchair-bound retired cop whose ridiculously upscale mansion hints at off-the-books income. But she has a secret past, too: as a top drug courier in
Berlin for the
Russian mafia. So when Damon decides to call in money from his narcotics contacts, he forces Victoria to make the five stops necessary – and takes her daughter hostage as insurance. The alpha mama takes to her superbike for a whistlestop underworld tour, strapped up with a helmet and chestcam letting her blackmailer eyeball her rendezvous.