Pushing the scenario further into arch spy intrigue, the group is headed by four “Kings,” each of them designated by a different playing card suit. If you’re wondering who came up with the unlikely nonsense of a network of anonymous do-gooders, thwarting world conflicts and saving maximum lives while taking no credit, that would be screenwriters Greg Rucka (who penned one of the better Netflix action thrillers, The Old Guard) and Allison Schroeder (lead writer on the rock-solid crowd-pleaser Hidden Figures). Frustrated with their various governments’ by-the-book methods, they have banded together, using sophisticated technology to neutralize global threats. The Heart is the key asset of the Charter, an underground peacekeeping organization made up of highly trained former intel operatives. He’s like Steve Kornacki with a cutting-edge equipment upgrade. It’s operated from a central hub by a jocular techie code-named Jack of Hearts ( Matthias Schweighöfer), who has one of those movie jobs where he stands around swiping the air and conjuring detailed hologram representations of all kinds of video and data, including exactingly calibrated statistical chances of success or failure on any given mission. In Heart of Stone, that all-powerful cyber tool is called “The Heart,” capable of hacking any network in the world, manipulating technology, sabotaging any system, even downing planes. Screenwriters: Greg Rucka, Allison Schroeder One and a half stars out of four.Cast: Gal Gadot, Jamie Dornan, Alia Bhatt, Sophie Okonedo, Matthias Schweighöfer, Paul Ready, Jing Lusi, Archie Madekwe, Enzo Cilenti, Jon Kortajarena “Heart of Stone,” a Netflix release, is rated PG-13 by the Motion Picture Association for sequences of violence and action, and some language. You would swear that the movie’s star AI wrote it - and even gave itself first billing, too. All the pieces here are fine but nothing is distinct from dozens of films before it. This means that “Heart” is spoken of so much that you have expect the Wilson sisters to turn up eventually.īut there is nothing in the impressively generic “Heart of Stone,” right down that title, that is even a little bit unexpected. The plot, from screenwriters Greg Rucka and Allison Schroeder, revolves around the threat of the Heart falling into the wrong hands. Gadot makes for a slinky if unspectacular spy. Not for the first time, the actor I most wish was center stage is Sophie Okonedo, who, as a Charter leader, is the most soulful presence in a not particularly soulful film. I’m not sure any of them get a chance to do all that much, though Bhatt is charmingly mischievous in her scenes. Glenn Close pops in as the head of the CIA. The trouble is kicked off by a hacker of mysterious intentions played by Alia Bhatt, a Bollywood star making her Hollywood debut. Its operator (Matthias Schweighöfer), like a new-age John King, contorts a room full of pixels with the wave of his hand, while guiding Charter agents from afar.Īlso in the mix is Jamie Dornan’s Parker, the leader of the MI6 unit that Stone is initially masquerading in - though his affiliations are also murky. To the credit of Harper, cinematographer George Steel and production designer Charles Wood, the action is generally fluid in “Heart of Stone.” The film’s handsomest design comes in Charter’s secret weapon: the Heart, the so-named quantum computer with supreme hacking abilities that can process chance-of-success scenarios in real time. This allows for plenty of “She can do that?” looks when the operation falls apart and Stone begins flashing Cruise-level skills while rushing off with a glowing parachute down the darkened slopes in slinky, snowy chase. The film’s opening sequence begins in a very Bond-like Alpine hotel where Gadot’s Stone is part of an MI6 mission posing as an inexperienced tech, not a field agent. (“Dead Reckoning,” for all its thrills, has about as much to do with today’s international politics as its star has to do with lengthy interviews with journalists.) And “Heart of Stone,” directed by Tom Harper ( “Wild Rose,” “ The Aeronauts” ), does have a few nifty moves of its own. After all, there have been countless lackluster espionage thrillers with little connection to the real world.
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