By ALEXUS CHARAY - Although I was curious to see if Netflix’s newly released action-thriller Sentinelle did anything new for the genre, it is a simple, straightforward film that does nothing different.
Olga Kurylenko stars in the Netflix thriller, Sentinelle
Photo courtesy IMDB.com
The film is about Klara, a trained soldier who seeks revenge on a man who harmed her sister. To sum up the movie to the basic formula, it follows: Klara returns home after completing a mission, her sister takes her out for fun and gets hurt, Klara gathers information about who hurt her sister, and then Klara spends the rest of the movie trying to hunt the man who hurt her sister. There is nothing else to this film.
One idea that seems to be abandoned halfway through the movie is Klara's PTSD. We see her at the beginning of the film struggling with the horrors of her past. Halfway through the film, this is never really spoken of again.
Klara turns to substance abuse to deal with her PTSD, so it would be better to see this issue affect her later on in the film rather than act like these drugs did nothing to her. The aftermath of witnessing something traumatic is intriguing and can add a lot to the character, so it a shame to see this interesting idea dumped in the trash midway through the movie.
Besides Klara's mental health condition, this film offers hardly anything else besides a few action scenes and a stretched-out plot. This is where I have my most grievances with the film. There is hardly any action, and there is scarcely any story to make up for it.
There needs to be a balance between plot and activity, but this film fails to deliver in both aspects. It's a story about revenge but one that hardly fills up the hour and fifteen minutes that have been dedicated to it. The ending, or I should say epilogue, seemed unnecessary and raises more questions than answers.
Sentinelle could have been a good movie had the film's events and Klara's character been well written. Instead, it is an average film that people could watch to kill some time or follow a mediocre storyline.