Francis Lawrence's Red Sparrow starring his Hunger Games mascot Jennifer Lawrence was a brilliantly directed espionage thriller. Sharp colors, staunch cinematography, pulsating score, rich production design and expert lighting ensured a visual treat. Performances all around were good too.
This was a daring mainstream movie that pulled no punches. It featured bold and powerful scenes of spy investigation tortures. The extreme physical, emotional and psychological trainings a would-be Sparrow have to go through were gut-wrenching! But ultimately, the problem with this motion picture lied within the writing.
Despite steady progression of plot and character construction from scratch, the product suffered from serious pacing issues. Sure, there were memorable sequences such as the shocking lorry accident, sauna revenge, 'breaking leg' during performance and floppy discs replacement. Even Matorin's (Sebastian Hülk) murder episode was well-executed! But, these interesting events happened too far apart! Most of the occurrences in between these pinnacles of excitement were dragging its feet on snail pace. The script definitely had a lot of polish pending to do by honing down the dull scenes - enter late and leave early.
The material was thin. If you try to stretch this attenuated substance over 2 hours, it's definitely gonna show. Throughout Act II, the story wasn't journeying anywhere. Hence, writer Justin Haythe took various corners, telling us side stories revolving Dominika's (Jennifer Lawrence) roommate and temporary boss that did not add any value. Only at the end you'd understand why she lagged around, having caused the plot to do the same. Even then, twists about Jeremy Irons' character and Dominika framing her uncle Ivan (Matthias Schoenaerts) without him defending himself were pure idiocy.
Sense of urgency weren't allowed to ripe much, as the protagonist always got spared or saved by someone else before anything serious took place. Therefore, you know she's not in true danger at any point in time. Her relationship with mum and Nate should have been strengthened more. We understood how they connected with each other, but we just didn't feel it. This same rectification would have given us a solidified reasoning and motivation as to why Nate went after Dominika even after knowing who she really was.