Red Sparrow (2018) * 1/2

Directed by:  Francis Lawrence

Starring: Jennifer Lawrence, Joel Edgerton, Jeremy Irons, Matthias Schoenaerts, Mary Louise Parker, Charlotte Rampling, Ciaran Hinds, Joely Richardson

I'm not a spy, but I don't think the spies in Red Sparrow are very good at their jobs.   A spy is supposed to be conspicuous and secretive, so it wouldn't be prudent to torture an interrogation subject in his apartment within earshot of neighbors.    Or gut a woman in her own bathtub and encourage another person to call the police.   I wasn't the least bit convinced the spies on either side knew what they were doing.    The guys in Mad Magazine's Spy vs. Spy were more competent.

With Russian interference in the 2016 Presidential election dominating the news cycle, it seems the Cold War is back on and now we have the next generation of one-upmanship between the Americans and Russians.    Think of the possibilities!   We will have more chases, more tortured Russian accents, more chases, more lurking in the shadows, more threats of nuclear war.   Ugh.

Jennifer Lawrence stars in Red Sparrow as Dominika Egorova, a Russian ballet dancer who turns Russian operative following a gruesome injury during a performance.   Her leg is turned in ways it shouldn't, and Red Sparrow continues the disturbing trend of onscreen violence towards Lawrence which started with the vile mother! (2017).    Her Uncle Vanya (Schoenaerts), who has creepy sexual designs on his niece (blood relativity be damned!), offers her a chance to make some money and keep her ailing mother in their Moscow apartment with government-paid healthcare.    After a laborious setup and a rape, Dominika is sent to Sparrow School, run by the cold, domineering Matron (Rampling), who is only missing a whip.   

The Sparrow School is called a "whore school" by Dominika; and she isn't wrong.    The school's function is to train its cadets to seduce their targets and gather intel in the service of Mother Russia.    Dominika is very bad at this and, despite her obvious distaste for her training, she is sent off on a mission to seduce American CIA operative Nate Nash (Edgerton) into revealing his mole inside the Russian government whose identity he is protecting.     Nate falls quickly for Dominika, who may or may not be playing him, not that we much care.    We soon learn whatever happens onscreen is likely inserted to jerk us around anyway and the Big Reveal will explain all at the end.

If this was Dominika's plot all along, she leaves an awful lot to chance, and is she crossing her fingers hoping to worm out of the aforementioned police investigation in order for the plot to go her way?   I don't feel I'm giving away any spoilers by suggesting the events of Red Sparrow service a Big Reveal.    Cold War movies are not complete without such swerves.    But Red Sparrow is a listless film, bogged down by its grayness.    It doesn't even provide us with the benefit of nifty, amusing gadgets.  

Lawrence does what she can, as does the rest of the cast, but Red Sparrow is more like a series of red herrings than an actual thriller.    Eventually, we grow tired of waiting for the inevitable plot machinations and being put through the same Cold War spy film paces while pointing out the obvious glaring mistakes these so-called professionals are making.