Dirty Angels (2024) Review: Martin Campbell’s Latest Action Movie is Yet Another Misfire
Dirty Angels marks the second time Martin Campbell delves into the female-led action genre after the Maggie Q-starred The Protégé three years ago. He has another one coming out called Cleaner starring Daisy Ridley, currently scheduled for next February. Now, back to Dirty Angels, what got me interested is in the reunion of Campbell and Eva Green after their last collaboration in Casino Royale, one of the director’s best movies to date.
Campbell, who also co-wrote the story with Alissa Sullivan Haggis and Jonas McCord handling the screenplay, follows American soldier Jake (Eva Green) who is saved by the U.S. military from an execution in a war-torn Afghanistan in 2021. Despite her safety, the rest of Jake’s team is forced to be left behind and die by point-blank execution. Months after the tragedy, the disgruntled Jake remains guilty of failing to rescue her team until CIA agent Travis (Christopher Backus) drops by one day. He wants to recruit her on a rescue mission to save the kidnapped schoolgirls in Pakistan.
The perpetrator turns out to be Amir (George Iskandar), the same ruthless ISIS terrorist leader responsible for executing her team. He has recently taken the girls hostage and demands a substantial ransom along with the release of an imprisoned holy man, Sheik Al-Shimali (Michalis Aerakis). Seeing this as a chance for revenge, Jake agrees to participate in the rescue mission under the name of “Jessica Rabit”, which will become a recurring joke for Jessica Rabbit later in the movie. She will pose as a member of an all-women relief organisation in Pakistan.
From there, she meets the rest of her team including weapons specialist Shooter (Emily Bruni), tech expert Geek (Jojo T. Gibbs), explosives technician The Bomb (Maria Bakalova), mechanic Rocky (Rona-Lee Shimon) and a medical professional The Medic (Ruby Rose). With Travis leading the team, he has Abbas (Aziz Capkurt) and Malik (Reza Brojerdi) assist them as local Pakistani drivers.
Dirty Angels has the potential of being a thrilling women-on-a-mission action movie and despite Eva Green doing her best playing a tough soldier, she is ultimately hampered by a shoddy script. There isn’t much chemistry to be found between her character and the rest of the all-female team unit. This, in turn, makes it harder for me to care whether they will make it alive in a dangerous rescue mission. I mean, what’s the point of establishing a team-up movie if the characters are mostly reduced to cyphers? This includes Maria Bakalova, who recently did a good job playing Ivana Trump in The Apprentice and Ruby Rose, who are all sadly underutilised.
The story also struggles to find the right balance between its straightforward, gritty tone and some of the lighthearted moments (again, the Jessica Rabbit joke comes to mind), resulting in a heavily uneven movie. The pace is equally erratic as it takes time to get to the point. Even by the time the action arrives, Campbell’s otherwise usual expertise lacks the propulsive flair that defines some of his best works.
The action is competently directed but nothing is worth remembering here, even though I do appreciate Campbell not shying away from the matter-of-fact graphic violence and brutality. At one point, we see the ISIS terrorists do not hesitate to throw some of the schoolgirls off the roof of a school building. Or a scene where one of the captives gets slit in the throat while being broadcasted live on television. It’s a pity because Eva Green gives her all in her role, proving she has what it takes to portray a convincing action star. She certainly deserves better than what she gets here in Dirty Angels.
