{"id":1275272,"date":"2020-04-12T20:15:15","date_gmt":"2020-04-12T19:15:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/8ce250469d.nxcli.io\/?p=1275272"},"modified":"2020-08-23T01:55:40","modified_gmt":"2020-08-23T00:55:40","slug":"the-rhythm-section-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/entertainment-focus.com\/2020\/04\/12\/the-rhythm-section-review\/","title":{"rendered":"The Rhythm Section review"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Blake Lively stars in this dark and dingy spy thriller from the producers of the James Bond films. Adapted from the series of novels by Mark Burnell \u2013 who wrote the screenplay himself \u2013 and directed by Reed Morano, The Rhythm Section feels like a film from a different era. It sits awkwardly somewhere in a venn diagram of Nikita, Bourne, and Len Deighton books, but benefits from a committed central performance from Lively.<\/p>\n<p>Three years after her family was killed in a Lockerbie style plane bombing, Stephanie Patrick\u2019s life has fallen to pieces. Addicted to heroin and working in a filthy London brothel, she is at rock bottom. A visit from an investigative journalist informs her that the man who made the bomb is in London. The thought of vengeance gives her life some purpose, and soon she is in the Highlands of Scotland with ex-MI6 agent Boyd (Jude Law) training her to be an assassin. The film\u2019s title comes from his technique in showing her how to shoot. You have to control your rhythm section \u2013 your heartbeat is the drums, your breathing the bass.<\/p>\n<p>The film is unbearably po-faced in tone, with Burnell and Morano desperately trying to make us take this seriously. This works in some aspects of the film, but less so in others. Stephanie has some training, but she\u2019s completely out of her depth as an international assassin. She\u2019s not some slick pro like Bourne or Bond, and there\u2019s a genuine awkwardness to her. Just because she\u2019s now fit and focused on revenge, she\u2019s still human. She wants to avenge her family, but she quickly discovers that ending someone\u2019s life is not as easy pulling a trigger.<\/p>\n<p>This sense of psychological realism works really well, and Lively is convincing in these scenes. What works less well however is just how preposterous and implausible the whole thing is. There are a few huge leaps to take, and I\u2019ll be honest there were one or two where I couldn\u2019t make it. The worst example is that the entire film hinges on a journalist tracking down a prostitute to tell her the terrorist who killed her parents is in London. She can\u2019t give him any information for his story, so why has he done this? It\u2019s a ridiculous plot contrivance, which makes no sense, and it muddied the entire film for me.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_1275274\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-1275274\" style=\"width: 640px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-1275274 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/8ce250469d.nxcli.io\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/The-Rhythm-Section.jpg\" alt=\"The Rhythm Section\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" srcset=\"https:\/\/entertainment-focus.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/The-Rhythm-Section.jpg 640w, https:\/\/entertainment-focus.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/The-Rhythm-Section-150x84.jpg 150w, https:\/\/entertainment-focus.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/The-Rhythm-Section-600x338.jpg 600w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-1275274\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Credit: Paramount Home Entertainment<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>There are a few nice stylistic touches courtesy of Reed Morano\u2019s slick direction. The action highlight of the film comes during a car chase in Tangier, where Morano chooses to keep the camera inside the car with Lively for the entire scene. It\u2019s a terrific and effective choice, with the camera only ever being on Lively\u2019s face, panning to what she is seeing in front of her, or switching to the people in pursuit. Perfectly edited with a brilliant use of sound and score, it is by far the best moment in an otherwise pedestrian and predictable film.<\/p>\n<p>The digital release comes with more than 40-minutes of bonus material, including a selection of deleted scenes, and featurettes about the main character, the fight choreography, the explosive effects, and the design of the film.<\/p>\n<p><strong>The Rhythm Section is available to Download &amp; Keep from the 13th April.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Cast:<\/strong> Blake Lively, Jude Law, Sterling K. Brown <strong>Director:<\/strong> Reed Morano <strong>Writer:<\/strong> Mark Burnell <strong>Released By:\u00a0<\/strong>Paramount Home Entertainment <strong>Certificate:<\/strong>\u00a015 <strong>Duration:<\/strong>\u00a0109 mins\u00a0<strong>Release Date:<\/strong> 13th April 2020<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Blake Lively stars in this predictable espionage thriller<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":25,"featured_media":1275273,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[6603,18234,32805,24317,29760],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v22.6 (Yoast SEO v22.6) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>The Rhythm Section review - Entertainment Focus<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/entertainment-focus.com\/2020\/04\/12\/the-rhythm-section-review\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Rhythm Section review\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Blake Lively stars in this predictable espionage thriller\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/entertainment-focus.com\/2020\/04\/12\/the-rhythm-section-review\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Entertainment Focus\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"http:\/\/www.facebook.com\/entertainmentfocus\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:author\" content=\"http:\/\/www.facebook.com\/entertainmentfocus\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2020-04-12T19:15:15+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2020-08-23T00:55:40+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/entertainment-focus.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/The-Rhythm-Section-feature.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"960\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"540\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"John Parker\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@http:\/\/www.twitter.com\/j0hnparker\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@Ent_Focus\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"John Parker\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/entertainment-focus.com\/2020\/04\/12\/the-rhythm-section-review\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/entertainment-focus.com\/2020\/04\/12\/the-rhythm-section-review\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"John Parker\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/entertainment-focus.com\/#\/schema\/person\/240d82de85c2b0b0bdf5ac7f07dbbee1\"},\"headline\":\"The Rhythm Section review\",\"datePublished\":\"2020-04-12T19:15:15+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2020-08-23T00:55:40+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/entertainment-focus.com\/2020\/04\/12\/the-rhythm-section-review\/\"},\"wordCount\":594,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/entertainment-focus.com\/#organization\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/entertainment-focus.com\/2020\/04\/12\/the-rhythm-section-review\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/entertainment-focus.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/The-Rhythm-Section-feature.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"Blake Lively\",\"Jude Law\",\"Reed Morano\",\"Sterling K. 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