Movie date: Everly, Latest Movies News - The New Paper
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Movie date: Everly

STARRING: Salma Hayek, Hiroyuki Watanabe, Togo Igawa

DIRECTOR: Joe Lynch

THE SKINNY: Everly (Hayek) is a sex slave trapped in a luxury apartment owned by misogynistic mob boss Taiko (Watanabe). All hell breaks loose when she is discovered to be working with the police to take down Taiko’s organisation. Everly soon learns there’s no escaping from her apartment as she fights off mercenary prostitutes, corrupt cops, the Yakuza and an eccentric torturer called The Sadist (Igawa).

RATING: R21

THE CONSENSUS: Unless you have singular tastes, the amount of violence — sexual and otherwise — is hardly palatable for a date movie.

MARS

The older one gets, the less patience one has for the sort of pointless violence we see in Everly.

Or maybe I should just speak for myself.

The action thriller opens with a horrifying gang rape, which takes place off-camera.

Then we find out that it was the beloved Salma Hayek who was the victim, as she stumbles naked into a bathroom and locks the door.

She ends up killing the rapists with a gun she had hidden in a toilet, and then she kills a lot more men besides.

It's basically a movie about Hayek killing dudes.

The violence is gleeful and cartoonish, reminiscent of Robert Rodriguez's Desperado and Quentin Tarantino's Kill Bill.

But director Lynch lacks Tarantino's artistry, and doesn't even measure up to the much less gifted Rodriguez.

This isn't meta pulp or stylish pulp or even so-bad-it's-good pulp.

It is what most pulp is, which is crud.

There's one particularly nasty sequence in which Everly is bound and tortured by a masochist, who she later offs in a particularly horrifying fashion.

I found myself wishing that I hadn't had to sit through any of it.

What's the point?

Films like this are really just an excuse for people to get off on violence.

- JASON JOHNSON

RATING: 1/5


VENUS

Hayek really loves her five-inch heels.

Or at least that's my takeaway from watching this ultra-violent revenge movie.

In an early scene after Everly slaughters her attackers, she goes to her closet and chooses a pair of sky-high shoes before proceeding to plan her escape.

Not quite the appropriate footwear, considering you are running for dear life.

In another scene that calls for a wardrobe change, Everly again opts for head-scratching clothing and has to be prompted to change into something appropriate by a key character.

If skimpy nighties, bras and undies, impossible heels and low-cut tank tops are director Lynch's definition of girl power, he's so wrong.

And what is Hayek, a Best Actress Oscar nominee for Frida, doing in a C-grade exploitation flick?

Could it be an ego-booster that at 48, she still boasts an amazing figure?

Also, what's up with Lynch's fetish for torture? Is he really sending out the message that violence should be reciprocated with more violence?

Not only does the graphic stuff get worse each passing minute, the baddies become increasingly ridiculous.

Hayek, to her credit, does an admirable job and fulfils her part of being the vengeful femme fatale - much like Uma Thurman in Kill Bill, with much more sex appeal.

But this is no Kill Bill.

- JOANNE SOH

RATING: 1/5

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