I admit that I borrowed .45 to see Milla Jovovich. Based on her role in the Resident Evil and other recent action movies I thought it would be an action movie. I kept assuming this despite reading the description on IMDB, “A story of how obsession, addiction and abuse leads a young woman to execute an elaborate plan of revenge.” Having watched the movie I found that the description was more accurate than my expectation. What left me with the strongest impressions was the abuse element. Every character in the movie was abused one way or another. We have seen Jovovich’s Kat beaten up with damaged face and body often enough. That in itself was shockingly well done.
For most of the film I thought the direction of the movie is similar to Jodie Foster’s Accused, in the sense that it would explore to what extent the victim of a crime can be called responsible for being victimized because of her behavior. As Kat is clearly an obsessive person who cannot seem to be able to leave his animalistic boyfriend, and who seems to be enjoying, at least part of the time, of the fast life of crime, money, drugs and S&M relationshsip. But as the quoted summary mentions under all of this she was planning a kid of revenge. Its execution in the last few minutes surprised me. Particularly her range of targets. It was as if life treated her badly, so she treated back everyone unfairly indiscriminately. During the closing credits a song is roaring with the lyrics sang passionately, “baby get well.” The message is clear, be for yourself. I quote below the very last line of the movies. Kat starts saying this monolog on the streets of the city, where most of the movie was shot. But she finishes it on the seashore. This is the first time in the movie we see any hint of nature.
Big Al was a great f**k. It was great. Until it wasn’t. Don’t get me wrong. When we first started going out he was exciting, dangerous, funny, sexy, wild. He made me feel safe, protected. But he could not protect me from himself. Big Al could get me almost anything in the world and it was almost good enough. You know life is like sex. If you want it done right you gotta do it yourself. Going out with Big Al made me realize the best feeling in the world is taking care of number one. It’s me.