Movie

Colombiana (2011)

A villainess protagonist entry, with a female assassin out for – what else? – revenge. Despite the tragic backstory, the central character is firmly in anti-heroine territory (if not villainy) because of her cold-blooded style and ruthless executions.

As plots go, Colombiana is standard fare, yet another tale of retribution that plays out predictably. But the lead is more interesting than most.

Villainess

Cateleya (Zoe Saldana)

The opening twenty-five minutes showcase Cataleya as a young girl (Amandla Stenberg in these scenes), and she’s a fiery one. Her father has ties to the criminal underworld and is targeted by a rival. Good thing he’s trained his family in weapon use, then. This includes his wife (handy with automatics) and teenage daughter. She soon proves she’s no easy prey by skewering a henchman’s hand to the dining table.

Even at a young age, Cateleya is a force to be reckoned with, navigating the streets and shanty towns of Bogota with confidence. After she eludes her pursuers, our anti-heroine bargains her way into the United States (with financial data from her father), gives the authorities the slip, and meets up with a family friend in Chicago. The contact is – of course – a criminal, whom Cateleya asks to train her as a killer.

After a time skip to adulthood, Cateleya orchestrates a fake DU crime and gets locked up in a police station. All part of her plan to murder a criminal under guard by US marshals. This nimble killer is a grown-up version with even more intelligence and athletic skill. After an imaginative sequence, where she escapes custody and disables a vent fan, we get a cold execution by the remorseless protagonist.

Things settle down after that, with three subplots converging. The first involves a police detective piecing together the assassin’s many murders (and assuming the killer is male). The second is the prerequisite romance present in female assassin tales. She may as well give up, because these never play out happily. Third, there’s the relationship between Cateleya and her adopted father / mentor, which breaks down since she’s obsessed with revenge. To the point of leaving calling card tattoos on her victims.

To keep things zipping along, there’s another assassination, this time at a luxury villa with a glass-covered shark pool (!). This enables an over-the-top death scene with a crooked financier fed to his own pets by the merciless hitwoman. Subplots are then wrapped up. The boyfriend takes a photo, which leads to a police raid on Cateleya’s apartment and a daring getaway. The reckless woman’s antics get her mentor killed, which really pisses her off.

After Cataleya blackmails / tricks the detective into helping her, she learns the main villain’s location from a corrupt agent. Putting a man in the crosshairs of a sniper rifle is a good way to break down his resistance.

The big finale has Cateleya assault the big boss’ mansion estate with enough firepower to wipe out a small army. The bodyguards don’t last long, except for the tough lieutenant, who puts up a bit more of a struggle. Throughout all this, the main baddie hides in a safe room. After the massacre, he makes a run for it and thinks he’s got away in a van. If he had checked the rear before setting off, he might have seen the assassin’s hounds. Feeding her targets to hungry animals is this woman’s speciality.

Honourable Mention: Assassins

Menno’s Mind (1997) – Loria (Stephanie Romanov)

A direct-to-video sci-fi thriller, and another anti-heroine firmly in villainess territory. The reluctant hero is a computer programmer (Billy Campbell) drawn into a rebel operation to expose a corrupt politician. This dodgy official plans to win an election through subliminal mind control. Virtual reality is a familiar plot device, and the atrocious computer graphics weren’t even good in the 1990s.

The female lead is the black-garbed Loria, who’s more of a vicious henchwoman than heroine. She has no issue with killing security personnel, often in brutal fashion. When she’s done eliminating two rent-a-cops with neck snaps, she threatens the nerd at gunpoint. Loria even forces her captive to download her dead lover’s memories into his brain.

The only reason to root for Loria is that the bad guy (Corbin Bernsen) is even nastier than she is. Fittingly, she sacrifices herself to save the programmer and is reunited with her lover in cyberspace. Don’t expect the story to make sense – it’s that kind of movie.