Everly (2014)
Action | Thriller

Salma Hayek takes no prisoners in this action packed thriller as a femme fatale unleashing the ultimate vengeance against a sadistic mob boss and his army of assassins.

Storyline: An action/thriller centered on a woman who faces down hitmen sent by her ex, a mob boss, while holed up in her apartment.

Reviewer's Note: Reviewed by Martin Liebman, April 3, 2015 -- Director Joe Lynch's (Knights of Badassdom) prostitute-fights-for-her-life-at-Christmas film Everly plays like a mash-up of Kill Bill meets Die Hard, but without the charisma, fine-tuned characters, pitch-perfect writing, or expert direction that helped make those films classics. In essence, Everly is a shell of the movies it imitates, accentuating its superficialities above everything else, resulting in a mechanical, unimaginative, and, despite all its gory guns-blazing mayhem and noise, tedious affair. The film is all about mayhem and a desperately wannabe cool factor (it doesn't get any more pseudo-"cool" than slowly panning through the destruction to a Christmas song...more than once) that never gets off the ground, despite leaping with all its might in its frenetic first and third acts and its desperate-for-drama-and-added-depth-while-slowing-down-the-mayhem-but-just-for-a-bit middle.

Everly (Salma Hayek), a high-end prostitute who is essentially the property of the wealthy Taiko (Hiroyuki Watanabe), is targeted for termination when it's discovered she's been secretly cooperating with the law. The severed head of a police detective tips her off. She manages to fend off her first attackers with a pistol she keeps stashed away in the toilet but faces wave upon wave of ever-more-dangerous killers, both hired men and other prostitutes hoping for a cut of reward money. Things get personal when Everly's mother (Laura Cepeda) and daughter (Aisha Ayamah), neither of whom she has seen in some time, are brought into the picture. As her killers become more and more sadistic and determined, so too must Everly resort to extreme measures to stay alive and keep her family safe.

Drama? A story that matters? Substance beyond the surface? Forget it. Everly's laser-like focus on guns, bullets, F-bombs, and blood leaves no room for anything more than a cursory, empty story that really only seems important in order to give the audience's abused ears a few moments of middle movie time to settle down from the gunfire. The dramatic angles -- whether Everly's or her family's -- are threadbare at best and unnecessary in the grand scheme of things. Why is it that movies that need a story can't get one right, and movies that don't need a story, those few like this one that are so intent on just inundating the audience with carnage, waste time dropping one in? It comes off as disingenuous and adds nothing to the movie beyond a few pebbly rattles in an otherwise empty energy drink can that's marketed solely by the flash of its extreme label and the short burst of vitality it has to offer the consumer. If the movie's just a vehicle for violence, just shoot 90 minutes of violence. No need to be pseudo-artful about the secondary stuff.

But Everly fails even considering whatever "bang for the buck" its gimmick has to offer. The movie head rushes into mayhem, having fun with the idea of a prostitute fighting for her life and undergoing a number of physical and emotional hurts along the way, but it feels hollow even in its parade of violence. It's not spectacle, it's not original, it's not even fun. The movie works at a laborious pace, dutifully doing what it can to engender goodwill by way of fantasy fan service, cobbling all the pieces together with little concern for rhythm, creativity, or all-out chaos. Sure it's loud and bloody, and there's some twisted stuff here and there, but it's pretty much a straightforward shoot 'em up that seems to settle for just "chaotic" (which really isn't all that special these days in the post-Tarantino's-heyday-era), dancing all around the blood-stained periphery but never going full-bore into total insanity, which seems the goal and may not have made for a necessarily better film but at least a more honest film that fans might embrace rather than wondering why there's not more to it than empty violence that only goes about 80% of the way to excess.

Every inch of Everly feels like it was pulled from a violent wet fan dream where a favorite sultry actress takes more punishment than Jack Bauer and doles out revenge on those who would harm her or her family. The film emphasizes violence over skin, so audiences hoping to see Salma shooting bad guys while topless are in for a disappointment. Audiences hoping to find a balanced movie are also in for a disappointment. Fans of mindless shooters with a paper-thin, recycled revenge/protection/self-defense plot that amps up the noise and overflows the screen with blood might get a kick out of the movie, but Tarantino, and even most of the clones, do it much, much better. Anchor Bay's Blu-ray release of Everly features fair video, ridiculously aggressive audio, and a couple of commentary tracks. Skip it.

[CSW] -1.2- It is listed as an action thriller that is closer to a black comedy horror gore film. If you check your brain at the door you can almost treat this as a black comedy because anything else is besides just pure sadomasochistic doesn't make any sense. On second thought no matter how you look at it really doesn't make any sense.
[V3.5-A4.5] MPEG-4 AVC - No D-Box.


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