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Colombiana

A good setup was wasted as the story inexplicably went off course. Zoe Saldana was the only bright spot, but it’s not like she had much to do aside from stunts.

Premise and Structure/Plot

It should have been so simple. Little Cataleya, after the cute opening where she stabbed the bad guy and ran away, should have said she wanted to avenge the death of her parents. Instead, she said she wanted to be a killer. Say what? Those are two different things and the death of her parents was not a natural connection to her being a professional assassin. (The other way would have made sense- after avenging her parents’ murders, she would have continued killing criminals.)

The movie did this because Cataleya did not know the whereabouts of the main bad guy as he had protection from the CIA. So she needed to kill strangers with her trademark as a way of sending a message and smoking him out. She finally got around to her vengeance at the start of Act III. Ridiculous. Act II should have started with her directly on the hunt for the murderer of her family. This could have been anything- perhaps Cataleya got word about the CIA factor and had to work on cracking that nut as the first step, perhaps there was no CIA factor and the bad guy moved and changed his identity, etc. Either way, it’s sad how a simple revenge story was bungled so badly.

Character

Near the end of Act II, Cataleya threatened to kill the family members of the FBI agent (a good guy) if he didn’t get the info from the CIA. What were the filmmakers thinking?! Did they expect us to admire Cataleya for her audacity? No, we all thought the same thing- the protagonist we’re supposed to be rooting for cannot harm the good guys. And she should be active in seeking what she wants, not making others do it for her.

Logic

In the setup, Cataleya’s uncle wanted to demonstrate to her the difference between simply killing someone and learning to be a smart assassin. He whipped out his gun and shot numerous rounds. Oh, this was during the day, near a school, with many witnesses, a few people in their cars were hurt as their vehicles got shot, police rushed into the scene…and Cataleya and the uncle calmly walked away without consequences. One of the most idiotic and unbelievable scenes I’ve ever watched.

Little thing

What does the title mean? It was stupid using a word/expression that was not self-explanatoy and not heard in the story.

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