Movie – Hanna

At last, a month of movie drought ends.  Hanna is the first semi decent film in weeks as the industry takes a break from releasing ‘adult orientated films’ (Does that sound top shelf? I was going for a play on Adult Orientated Rock) over the multiple bank holidays.Whether I would have seen this if there was a plethora of films I’m not sure, despite it coming highly recommended by the boys from Duran Duran. I was going to see it in Canada, the nightly cinema is a tradition when I’m travelling in N. America but actually, there was so much else to see and do! So it’s top of the list of one for my return.The story you may have heard is of a 16 year old girl (Saoirse Ronan) that has been bought up as an assassin, in that she has literally trained her whole life to be a killer. She lives in the woods with her equally competent father (Eric Bana) who as well as survival skills has taught her many languages. For the first part, we glimpse an insight into their wild world, killing animals to feed on and stripping furs to be clothed in. They train hard, fighting each other with whatever weapons they can muster. What we don’t know is why.Very few people know the whole truth at this point and you, dear movie goer, are not one of them.The time comes soon enough for young Hanna to be released from the wild and do the job she has been born to do. When Hanna is left to her own devices, her job is to kill a CIA boss, it’s obvious it’s a revenge killing and the reason doesn’t become completely clear until towards the end so the film has you gripped as they both race in different directions to kill before they are killed. There are some annoyances; why were they all trying to kill each other and why isn’t the family protected rather than forced to kill to survive but the film is unusual and brilliantly made.7½/10Smile factor 7½/10[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qRUx88vRjIk&w=560&h=349]