★★★★☆

Olga Kurylenko gives a stellar performance in Momentum. James Purefoy and the rest of the cast really help sell this film as well. Honestly Olga is becoming one of my favorite actors. I first encountered her in Hitman (which I own a copy of) and you’ve also seen me write about her in my review of Centurion.

In case you are wondering where you saw James Purefoy before, he was Mark Anthony in Rome and he plays Philippe de Clermont in A Discovery of Witches. Morgan Freeman also has a small role in this film so there is a little something for everyone.

Momentum storyline in a shot glass

Olga plays an ex-CIA assassin that got burned by the agency ala Burn Notice. Unlike Burn Notice, Olga kills everyone except children, well, she used to, now she only does it when she required. To survive in the wild she hires herself out to thieves to plan and execute high value heists. Indeed, the movie opens in the middle of one. Naturally the diamonds they stole were nowhere near as valuable as the thumb drive in the deposit box with them. Naturally someone had to see her face so the cleaners could be on the trail of her and her team.

Who is this movie for?

If you like the early Resident Evil franchise films with Milla Jovovich not for the zombie theme, but for the hard bodied powerful woman just laying waste to what offends or tries to harm her, then you get this movie. Honestly, if you liked the early Jason Bourne franchise films (not the last one) you should love this film. They set this up for a sequel and it just never happened! One can only hope someone with deep pockets buys the studio and tries to make a good low budget franchise out of this. A female Jason Bourne is kind of overdue in the marketplace. They have to hurry though because it looks like Olga did most of her own stunts and even Jackie Chan found out you couldn’t do that forever.

The bad reviews are really wrong

There are an awful lot of shit reviews for this movie. They are wrong. This movie was a victim of saturation. Take a look at the films of 2015 sorted by popularity. There was no end of big budget mayhem movies like The Last Witch Hunter. There was also no shortage of cerebral drama like Bridge of Spies and Trumbo. We had too many cheesy movies to count that year.

I really hope another studio picks this up and turns it into a franchise. Okay, maybe you can’t make money in the theaters with it, but you don’t have to go there. Honestly, if this had been released to the cheapie theaters as a first run it would have done well. Dead Poet Society went this route and scored big.

This is a very good six pack and pizza or Chardonnay and Chinese take-out movie when you just want some interesting action and a token few characters to care about. It costs almost $60 to go see a movie in the first run theaters. This ain’t that kind of movie. This movie and franchise would also do well in the pay streaming services. If you are paying $8-$10 to see this movie you don’t feel screwed. I’m probably going to pay that to buy a copy on eBay.

Studio – know your market.

For more movie rental ideas please see list one and list two.