Man, sometimes you see a movie that you just want to like so much. You suspend disbelief, forgive some cheesiness, and just hang on for the ride. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. I wish I could report that I was able to stick with EVERLY until the end, but there were just one too many films sins to forgive.
EVERLY is about the titular character (go for it Talk Backers) played by Salma Hayek who has been held captive in a posh apartment for the past four years by a powerful human trafficking kingpin. Though she was spared an even worse fate by merely being kept as the boss' concubine, Everly has been denied seeing her daughter for the majority of the young one's life. When a plot by the imprisoned heroine to cooperate with an undercover sting operation goes sour, Everly is faced with a litany of assassins who want to collect the sizable bounty that is now on her head.
I love, love, love the premise. I also love the dogma that director Joe Lynch employs by setting the entire film within the confines of the apartment. And I absolutely love Hayek's performance. She manages to perfectly capture the angst of a forlorn mother juxtaposed with the badass tenacity of an action hero. While there is so much to love, however, sadly there is so much I don't love.
I can appreciate a film that exists in an over-the-top universe, but there is a very fine line between balls-to-the-walls and downright silly. While some of the silliness works well (who doesn't love a legion of killer hookers?), other sequences that aren't necessarily played for laughs made me cringe/giggle- and totally not in a "it's so bad it's good" kinda way. In fact, when some super serious drama finally plays out near the end, I just flat out didn't care. The gravity of the situation was completely forsaken by goofiness- an unforgivable sin in my book.
So again, though I can't completely dismiss EVERLY, the good just doesn't reconcile the bad here.
Cheers,
Rebecca Elliott, aka Annette Kellerman
