Jolt review - Uninspired and devoid of quality

2/5

Story:
The story follows Lindy, played by Kate Beckinsale, who suffers intermittent explosive disorder where she has bouts of uncontrollable violent rage if someone ticks her off the wrong way. The first part of the story is a narration of Lindy’s childhood leading to her diagnosis, and then being used as a lab rat by the military to make her a highly trained operative. The narrative then shifts to the present day where Lindy uses a self-administered shock therapy treatment to keep her rage at check. Her world is then turned upside down when her intimate friend, Justin played by Jai Courtney, is murdered, and she goes on a rampage to find his killer.

Review:

The core concept of the movie, directed by Tanya Wexler, is quite intriguing with an excellent cast who have delivered great performances. The opening 20 minutes of the film offered great promise, with the restaurant scene featuring Lindy and Justin’s first date written interestingly. There’s great chemistry between the actors, and the subplot involving Lindy’s interaction with the rude waitress sets up the character arcs for both of them. Unfortunately, the few good elements of the film end right there.

As the story unravels, the similarities the film shares with several other films in the genre is hard to miss. Kate Beckinsale’s character Lindy is identical to Charlize Theron’s character from Atomic Blonde. The very obvious neon aesthetic both films share is also hard to miss. The filmmakers even decided to give Beckinsale a blonde just like Charlize Theron, a baffling decision and further validates the theory that the character written for Beckinsale is a knockoff. Once the antagonists are introduced, the film veers into the John Wick territory. The character motivations, the visuals, and the set design made the film look like a cheap spin-off of the hit franchise starring Keanu Reeves

The overall writing of both the characters and the screenplay was uninspired, with dark humour falling flat and borderline cringeworthy at times,which is a shame considering the wealth of talented actors, such as Stanley Tucci, Bobby Cannavale, and Laverne Cox, at the filmmakers’ disposal. The most unforgivable flaw the film had was the careless post-production where audio goes out of sync for a dialogue, a very obvious one at that. The climatic twist felt cliched and dumbed down a particular character, which ruined the few memorable moments from the film. Not even the action sequences were good enough to redeem the film.

Verdict:

The film unfortunately fails on many levels with the exception of the steady performance by the cast.