MOMENTUM – The Review

A robbery, (a diamond heist), comes off with what seems to be a minor glitch; one of the thieves, (all of them wearing identical body armor suits, head to toe, with voice altering microphones), is unmasked and can be identified by witnesses. All this during an argument by the thieves.

The unmasked robber is revealed to be not only a woman but young, and drop dead beautiful. This is Alex (Olga Kurylenko, Quantum of Solace, The Water Diviner), We learn that she was talked into this heist against her better judgment. She once had a relationship with the “brains” of this outfit.

Of course the thieves do not get away with their loot, a fortune in diamonds, without complications. Wouldn’t be an action movie if things didn’t get fouled up now would it? Turns out there is a flash drive among the jewels, with some very damaging and valuable information wanted by a mysterious old guy called only “the Senator” (Morgan Freeman, in every movie you can name).

A crew of cleaners, cold blooded hit men led by Mr. Washington, (James Purefoy, John Carter of Mars, Resident Evil) come looking for the flash drive. As you would expect much carnage and mayhem ensues.

Let me just say first how nice it is to see that Morgan Freeman (in what amounts to a cameo) can still play a cold blooded, heartless bastard. Freeman has been pegged as the “nice guy” for way too long. He made his reputation way back in 1987 in Street Smart, one of the first movies to find an audience almost completely on home video (VHS), playing a cold blooded sociopath.

The flash drive is of course what Alfred Hitchcock always referred to as “the MacGuffin”, the object that drives the narrative. And like its title MOMENTUM is all drive and forward momentum, with its foot on the gas, all the way to the floor!

This movie is built for speed, the action set pieces are very well staged, some of the plot turns are by the numbers, but when the project is this well thought out and executed that is a minor complaint, at best.

Olga Kurylenko makes for an excellent action hero, of course it turns out her skill set was learned the hard way. She does have friends on her side, but spends most of the running time fighting a seemingly endless supply of bad guys.

Which raises a question in my mind, in one of the action set pieces, early on, Alex takes one of the bad guys hostage to make her getaway, using him as a human shield. Would that really work? Especially in an action movie, you would expect the bad guys would not hesitate to shoot one of their own to get what they were hired to retrieve. But why quibble.

MOMENTUM is an excellent piece of work, filmed entirely in Capetown, South Africa, beautifully filmed, all the actors, even minor characters, are on top of the material. And the script is very good, full of surprises.

The ending is unbelievably suspenseful, worthy of the master, Hitchcock, I do not like to give out spoilers but Alex gets boxed in and wins the day in a totally unexpected way. MOMENTUM has lots of twists and turns, double and triple crosses, great characters, even the bad guys are sympathetic, and that ending is terrific.

Morgan Freeman has the last word in a coda that leaves MOMENTUM wide open for a sequel, which I personally would love to see.

Four out of five stars.

MOMENTUM IS AVAILABLE NOW ON DIGITAL HD & ON DEMAND. RELEASED ON BLU-RAY™ AND DVD ON DECEMBER 1, 2015