Culture

Director: Joe Wright (3.5/5)

Think The Bourne Identity but in the form of a teenage girl who has been trained by her father from babyhood to be an ice-cold killer, and you have Hanna.
 
The film begins sixty miles below the Arctic Circle. There, in a snowscape across which a deer daintily treads, is a young girl with a bow and arrow. Before there’s time to cry out in dismay – ping! The deer has been struck. Chased by the girl, it hobbles away only to crash to the floor. A close-up of its eyeball is followed by a shot of the girl firing a pistol at it. Soon she crouches next to its corpse, plunging her hand into its flesh, wrenching out its bloody entrails. Only then does the film’s title pop up, as vivid and red as in a European artshock movie.
 
After an incredible start, the film seems to slightly sag just becoming ‘one of those’, surprising considering the cast of Eric Bana and Cate Blanchett. Bana plays Erik, a battle-scarred tough guy hiding out in the forest with his daughter wearing clothes made of animal skins. It is made clear early on that he has been preparing Hanna for someone, aka Cate Blanchett, who out in the real world will stop at nothing until she is dead.
 
Hanna eventually heads out into the unknown wanting a normal life but warned by her father that she will be fighting for her very life at first. A deadly race ensues across Morocco, southern Spain and Germany where we follow Hanna’s discovery of modern-day society; after all, coming from a cabin in the Arctic, civilisation is clearly quite a shock.
 
Often losing a bit of direction, boredom does set in, but Saoirse Ronan - who plays Hanna - handles the physical challenges of her role so gracefully that it’s hard to believe this pale and lanky teenager couldn’t snap your neck in real life. Her lightning reflexes and martial-arts moves are combined with a vulnerable girlishness making Angelina Jolie in Salt look amateurish.
 
Despite some reservations, Hanna has a great plot matched by scenes of explosive shoot-outs and epic fighting, all strewn together by touching moments of reality. Go into this film expecting something a little out of ordinary and you will be paid back in spades. Tough to chew on maybe, but ultimately rewarding.