Zagreb. Avery Graves is an undercover CIA agent who one days finds her home empty, and her husband David kidnapped by a mysterious group who order her to find a top secret file, "Canary Black", by the end of the day. Avery thus interrogates a CIA detainee and runs away, forcing her superior Hedlund to start a search after her. Avery gets a secret password by tying up the Director of the CIA in the hotel, and downloads "Canary Black": it's a virus program that can destroy all computer systems in each country. The kidnapper, Breznov, uses "Canary Black" to publicly blackmail all countries to transfer 1% of their GDP to his private account or he will unleash the virus. Avery stops him, but finds out David was a double agent who informed Breznov about the virus.
"Canary Black" is a standard and routine, but still effective and dynamic action thriller that works. It tackles the ever actual topics of blackmail and forced choice in the spy world, here untypically set in locations of Zagreb, which gives it a certain spark. Kate Backinsale is here to show off and present how "badass" she is, but she does this with style and charm, and therefore makes the protagonist Avery interesting even during the moments when her decisions don't make any sense. Plot holes appear several times in the story: for instance, criminal Breznov forces Avery to find the "Canary Black" file for him, but when she instead tries to find track down the locaiton of his phone call, he punishes her by setting her a trap in which she enters a room and steps on a mine under the carpet. What is it? Does Breznov want her to find the file or does he want to kill her? Because she barely survives this trap. The chase and shootout sequences are solid, sometimes good, though not that inventive, whereas the dialogue is dry. Humorless and conventional, though the reveal of the purpose of the file virus,a nd the commotion is causes among the heads of state during an international conference is suspensful, whereas the plot twist at the end arrives unexpected.
Grade:++
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