Vanquish (2021) – Movie Review
23rd May 2021 Written by Peter Walkden
Victoria (Ruby Rose) had a dark past as a Russian drug courier. Presently, she looks after her only daughter, who is currently unwell with a medical condition, and works for a retired cop named Damon (Morgan Freeman), who ended up in a wheelchair due to being in the line of fire. She cooks, cleans and assists Damon where required. But Damon was a crooked cop and is now forced to do something unexpected.
Damon requires several bags of money to be collected throughout the night. He decides to kidnap Victoria’s daughter in exchange for Victoria visiting many dealers and collecting a bag of money off each. After each collection, Victoria must return it to Damon straight away. If she is successful in making all the required collections, she will be reunited with her daughter. Victoria arms herself with guns and a motorbike and straps on a live camera (so Damon can see her progress) before getting on with the task.
The pacing of this is pretty simple and highly repetitive. Each time Victoria attempts to collect a bag of money from someone, it is dangerous and always ends with the same results. Each time Victoria tries to make the process pleasant and straightforward. Still, naturally, bad guys would rather try to kill her in a bloody gunfight. Of course, once she successfully collects the bag, she then visits Damon to deliver the goods. Because the plot is repetitive, it becomes dull and uninteresting very quickly. The film attempts a change ever so slightly in the final moments, but by this point, viewers would have checked out or walked away from their TV long ago.
As a character, Victoria is given little to no back story, and what is offered is just talked about, not shown. Damon’s character gets a more significant introduction, but it’s only thanks to a rather lengthy (and dull) opening credits sequence that lasts for approximately five to six minutes!
Performances are a major letdown. Victoria is an uninteresting character, and due to the performance from Ruby Rose, she is emotionless and highly bland from start to finish. It doesn’t matter if she is supposed to be emotional or shooting a gun; the facials remain the same. Morgan Freeman gives a better performance, but honestly, there’s not much for him to do here, and the interactions he has with Ruby Rose on screen could have been filmed in a day or two.
The action scenes are disappointing. Each kill or shot is quick and snappy, thanks to the unusual style of editing. The action is never fun or exciting, and at no point did I fear for Victoria’s life. She shoots, she makes a remark or one-liner, and that’s the end of the gunfight; it’s all over far too quickly. The visuals are also questionable. The majority of the film is at night, consisting of a visual style that uses a night vision/green filter. In a nutshell, the visuals are just ugly to watch, and I found it distracting to stay focused throughout the film. Vanquish feels more of a 90’s TV series than a motion picture film.
Overall, Vanquish is a hot mess that keeps its viewers bored and rolling their eyes. The film is highly repetitive therefore uninteresting. Action sequences are never pleasing and fail to deliver anything exciting and suspenseful. Performances are a significant letdown as we witness Ruby Rose bring a dull and emotionless character to the screen. Morgan Freeman is undoubtedly a better aspect of the film, but sadly, there’s not much for him here either. I honestly hoped for more given the talent. Instead, I can say that a small handful of movie buffs will take any joy in this brainless forgettable film.
1.4/10
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