On June 27, the cinema started showing the action thriller «Paradox Effect» starring Olga Kurylenko and Harvey Keitel. This is the feature film debut of director Scott Weintrob, who previously worked in short and documentary formats. In the review below, we state that Olga Kurylenko’s film career has taken a wrong turn and discuss what effect Weintrob’s film actually has.
Genre action movie, thriller
Director Scott Weintrob
Starring Olga Kurylenko, Harvey Keitel, Meredith Mickelson, Talia Asseraf, Angie Kivan, Oliver Trevena
Premiere movie theaters
Year of issue 2024
Website IMDb
In an Italian bar, former drug addict Karina is forced to work an unpleasant job with an unpleasant boss. Her 11-year-old daughter is about to arrive, but the grieving mother won’t be able to meet the child at the airport. And all because the poor girl witnesses a murder. This event plunges the heroine into a dangerous criminal story, where her child’s life will be at stake.
It’s worth noting that this is the second week in a row that an action-thriller with a female protagonist has been released. Last weekend, we had the opportunity to enjoy a pointless bore called «Trigger Warning», which premiered on Netflix. «Paradox Effect» — a movie based on the same opera, i.e., just as unpretentious, absurd, and painfully boring. Only here Olga Kurylenko deals with useless extras instead of Jessica Alba.
This alone does not save the overall picture, where the villainous ambitions are limited to the fact that a crazy old man has kidnapped children and is demanding a ransom. Gathering around him a cripple and a half with machine guns and holed up in some abandoned building. Even Keitel’s handsome Jonquil suit, spectacular cigar, and pseudo-philosophical monologues do not provide this small-town gang with the necessary mafia presentability.
Almost everything here looks illogical and absurd, from the quoting of Nietzsche and the voiceover of the radio host who systematically announces «newsworthy» events to the clumsy throwing around of Karina and her long-suffering kidnapper.
There are some interesting moments in the movie, but they have to do with the filming itself, in particular, with the obvious use of a drone, when the camera literally jumps out of the apartment window into the yard and follows the car. We can also recall a scene in which the protagonist’s daughter is caught between two shooters, just as John Connor once found himself in a tight corridor between two hellions of the Skynet.
What is left in the end? A primitive budget action movie from somewhere in his late filmography Bruce Willis. A collection of grieving faces from any dentistry in your city. And another «virgin against trouble» in a movie that is a complete disaster. This is the very effect of paradox.
