Colombiana (other)

''Colombiana'' is a 2011 French English-language action thriller film co-written and produced by Luc Besson and directed by Olivier Megaton. The film stars Zoe Saldaña with supporting roles by Michael Vartan, Cliff Curtis, Lennie James, Callum Blue, and Jordi Mollà. The film is about Cataleya, a nine-year-old girl in Colombia whose family is killed by a drug lord. Fifteen years later, a grown Cataleya seeks her revenge.

The film had a generally unfavorable reception from critics, but Saldaña's performance and action sequences were praised. It grossed $63.4 million against a $40 million production budget.

Plot

In 1992, in Bogota, Colombia, drug baron Don Luis Sandoval sends his enforcer Marco and a gang of armed men to kill his gang member Fabio Restrepo and his family because Fabio has defied him by trying to leave his prolific drug crime activity behind. Fabio gives his nine-year-old daughter, Cataleya, a SmartMedia computer memory card loaded with information on Don Luis' business and tells her it's her "passport"; he also gives her the address of her uncle Emilio in Chicago, Illinois, who will take care of her. Finally, he leaves her with her mother's cataleya orchid necklace. After Fabio and his wife Alicia are gunned down, Cataleya escapes and seeks asylum at the U.S. Embassy. She is granted passage to the United States after handing over the memory card to embassy staff. Although American officials attempt to transfer her into the foster care system, Cataleya tracks down her uncle in Chicago and asks him to train her as a killer.

Fifteen years later in 2007, a grown Cataleya has become an accomplished assassin. Emilio serves as her broker, providing her with contracts. With each murder she commits, she leaves her signature, the Cattleya flower, hoping to one day attract the attention of Don Luis so she can take her revenge. When Emilio finds out about Cataleya's intentions and that she has been targeting men connected to the Don, he begs her to stop to avoid endangering the lives of his own family, but she admits that she does not care about the risk to his family. While she is spending the night with her American boyfriend, Danny Delanay, he takes a photo of her sleeping and then shows it to a friend, who then decides to run a background check on Cataleya, which alerts the FBI.

Meanwhile, FBI agent James Ross is working to identify the killer behind more than twenty unsolved murders, all of which have cattleya orchids left behind. He gets a pin on Cataleya's photo from the background check and orders her arrest, but Cataleya escapes and reaches out to Emilio, only to find that Don Luis's operatives had, indeed, caused the brutal slaughter of Emilio and his entire family. She confronts Ross at his home and threatens to kill him and his entire family, forcing him to reach out to CIA agent Steve Richard, who she knows is sheltering Don Luis from the law in exchange for his cooperation with American authorities. When she threatens to slaughter Richard's family, Richard gives her the Don's location.

Don Luis learns that Cataleya is still alive and organizes his men to kill her, but she ambushes them first and wipes out the entire gang, including Marco. Don Luis flees and swears revenge. Cataleya, having planted her specially trained attack dogs in his escape vehicle, orders them to eat Don Luis alive.

Danny is interrogated by Ross, Cataleya calls him from a payphone; they talk briefly before Ross grabs Danny's phone, but Cataleya hangs up, leaving town on a bus.

Cast

Production

The script for ''Colombiana'' was based on ''Mathilda'', which was originally written by Luc Besson as a sequel to '' Léon: The Professional''. After a disagreement with Gaumont on how to proceed with the film, Besson and director Olivier Megaton reworked the script into a standalone film.

Filming began in August 2010 in locations including Chicago, New Orleans, Mexico, and France. The film was produced by Besson's EuropaCorp company and the script was written by Besson and Robert Mark Kamen.

David Martin-Jones, in an essay written for ''Senses of Cinema'', stated that the film was likely to have been perceived by audiences to be an American Hollywood production, noting that "aping the look of a Hollywood genre film, with a non-US twist" had been used in previous European films.

Reception

Critical response

Christy Lemire of ''The Associated Press'' reviewed ''Colombiana'', writing that "The director of '' La Femme Nikita'' and ''The Fifth Element'' serves as co-writer and producer here, but this is very much a spin-off of his brand, a continuation of the kind of stereotype- and gravity-defying characters he's made his name on. ''Colombiana'' feels more hammy and muscular, though – but knowingly so, and that's what makes it solid, late-summer escapist fun." Betsy Sharkey of the ''Los Angeles Times ''wrote: "This B-movie blast of bloody blam blam is the latest chapter in the Luc Besson book of badly bruised lovelies who are better not crossed. What he began in 1990 with ''Nikita'' followed with '' Léon'' in '94 and '97's ''The Fifth Element'', (the last written with Robert Mark Kamen, who co-wrote ''Colombiana'' with Besson), he refines in ''Colombiana''." Claudia Puig of ''USA Today'' wrote: "This is a showy flower of an action film. Saldaña doesn't get much of a chance to emote, but her action skills blossom." Jordan Mintzer of ''The Hollywood Reporter'', said that "There are guilty pleasures to be had in this frenzied B starring Zoe Saldaña, who gives an acrobatic performance that makes the overcooked material watchable."

Controversy

A nonprofit group called PorColombia criticized the film, saying that it stereotyped Colombia in a negative way. Carlos Macias, president of PorColombia, claimed that the film is proof of a "total lack of creativity" in Hollywood. When asked about the situation in an interview, Saldaña said "Shame on them? I don't know, I wish I knew how to address stupid unintelligent comments but I don't, I'm not a stupid person."

The following year, in an essay published in ''Senses of Cinema'', David Martin-Jones focused on a different aspect of the South American character, believing that the film provided "a different perspective" concerning immigration and international wealth inequality. He notes that a "character from the global south wreaks havoc on the wealthy and corrupt in the global north", offering "a different perspective than is usually seen in a Hollywood blockbuster."

Box office

''Colombiana'' grossed $36.7million domestically (United States and Canada), and $26.8million in other territories, for a worldwide total of $63.5million, against a budget of $40million. It opened at No. 2, in the first of its three consecutive weeks in the Top10 at the domestic box office.

Sequel

At the 2015 CineEurope, when the production house EuropaCorp announced upcoming films, it mentioned that ''Colombiana 2'' was in development. While Saldaña responded to an interviewer in 2017, that she wouldn't mind reprising her role as Cataleya, as of 2025 no such sequel exists.

See also

* Colombia in popular culture

References

External links

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Colombiana
2011 films
2011 action thriller films
French action thriller films
French crime thriller films
2011 crime thriller films
Films about Colombian drug cartels
Films about contract killing
Films set in 1992
Films set in 2007
Films set in Chicago
Films set in Colombia
Films shot in Chicago
Films shot in New Orleans
Girls with guns films
2010s Spanish-language films
2010s vigilante films
French vigilante films
French films about revenge
Films directed by Olivier Megaton
Films produced by Luc Besson
Films scored by Nathaniel Méchaly
Films with screenplays by Luc Besson
Films with screenplays by Robert Mark Kamen
Stage 6 Films films
TriStar Pictures films
EuropaCorp films
Parkour in film
English-language French films
2010s English-language films
Spanish-language French films
American crime thriller films
2011 multilingual films
French multilingual films
2010s French films
English-language action thriller films
English-language crime thriller films
Teen Choice Award winning films