"Ava" is a Hot Cliched Mess

The movie Ava follows the exploits of an assassin who finds herself on a kill list. The title character is a white, female, former junkie who is discovered and mentored by an older, male government hitter and eventually comes to realize that she no longer wants to use her license to kill. 
If this basic outline sounds familiar it's because you may have seen this film before -- multiple times. Last year it was called Anna (except for the drug addiction). In 1993 it was called Point of No Return. And in 1990 it was called La Femme Nikita.

In this case, Ava has racked up a body count of over 40 sanctioned hits. But lately, she's begun to wonder if her targets really deserve to die. So she's been questioning them about their life choices before squeezing the trigger. Her supervisor, Duke, concerned for her safety regarding the potential consequences if word gets out about these "interviews", warns Ava to knock it off. After taking some time for herself with her estranged family, Ava, of course, gets back to bumping dudes off. However, a higher-ranking assassin, Simon, discovers what Ava's been doing and decides that she's a liability that needs to neutralized.    

Like those other movies, Ava is little more than a celebration of man-bashing -- and the bashing isn't just metaphorical. For most of the film, Ava punches, kicks, poisons, bludgeons and shoots dude after dude. The film opens with a disguised Ava flirting with, then smugly shooting to death, a guy in the back of an SUV. While the believability of a 100-lb person easily overpowering trained killers twice their size (sometimes several at once) in these movies has been debated before, in this case, Ava even manages to get the best of a bigger and more experienced assassin while she's drunk. I'm not even joking. 

Though the majority of the characters are male, Ava herself isn't the only woman in the story -- far from it. Ava's mother and sister play key roles, as does a woman who seems to have sway over Boston's underworld gambling scene. But somehow, all of the female characters survive. No matter how despicable. Even the murderous loan shark and two female assassins. In fact, the only dude who makes it to the end credits is Ava's former fiance, who also happens to be her sister's current fiance (portrayed by rapper-turned-actor Common). As an African-American man, I'm letting you know that the only good thing that can be said about Ava is the fact that the Black guy not only wasn't killed first, he doesn't die at all. Do yourself a favor and skip it.

Originally Posted 8/26/20