Review: Everly

Call it Salma Hayek's Kill Bill or Die Hard, Everly is an entertaining single-location, nightlong action romp that celebrates its B-movie status with verve and panache.

Something bad has already gone down before we first see the naked and obviously manhandled Everly (Hayek) as she gingerly enters the bathroom, and something worse is about to unfold as the men are threatening to knock down the door to get her back inside to party some more. Within minutes, we've got an apartment littered with the bodies of dead Japanese gangsters, and a steady procession of armed guards and prostitutes out to collect the bounty that the mysterious and powerful Taiko (Hiroyuki Watanabe) has placed on Everly's head. It seems Everly has been working as a prostitute for Taiko and the yakuza before she decided to snitch to a local police detective. Taiko, having held her in special regard, cannot let her betrayal pass. Everly will die that night, he promises, but he'll let her daughter live long enough to work off her mother's debt. Everly must now race against the clock to save her mother and her daughter while trapped in her apartment, which is fast becoming the destination spot for some pretty deadly players.

Director Joe Lynch and screenwriter Yale Hannon pull out all the stops, throwing armed assassin after armed assassin at their heroine until the happenings stretch all levels of absurdity and incredulity. It's comical in the best way possible as one prostitute throws off her wig and arms herself with daggers only to find herself hooked through the mouth like a captured fish; two other prostitutes argue with each other over the money until they end up shooting each other; Everly gets a rabid guard dog to go fetch a grenade; half a dozen mobsters barely make it out of the elevator before they're blown to bits; and let's not even talk the state of Everly's apartment by the time the mayhem is over.

Lynch loves his schlock, to be sure, but he also knows how to dress it up with some memorable characters, namely the impeccably suited older gentleman called the Sadist (Togo Igawa) and his partner-in-crime the Masochist (Masashi Fujimoto), a mostly naked fellow with Old Boy hair who makes his entrance inside a cage. They're accompanied by four masked and costumed henchmen who surround Everly as the Sadist takes out his tools: vials of sulfuric acid, gasoline, battery acid, and more of the like. It's a wonderful piece of floridity that culminates in a flamboyantly gaudy end for the Sadist.

The action may be fast and furious, but the filmmakers manage to find some space for characterisation as Everly contends with a mother who has no clue where her daughter has been for the last four years as well as trying to establish her own bond with her daughter before sending them off to a hopefully safe haven. Hayek delivers on all fronts, making Everly a feisty firecracker capable of showing compassion to a dying, relatively kindhearted gangster she nicknames Dead Man (Akie Kotabe, dispensing both advice and comic relief) as well as some huge cojones during her showdown with Taiko. Hayek and Watanabe play their scene with such swagger that Everly almost turns into the most screwed-up break-up ever.

Everly

Directed by: Joe Lynch

Written by: Yale Hannon

Starring: Salma Hayek, Akie Kotabe, Hiroyuki Watanabe, Togo Igawa, Masashi Fujimoto, Jennifer Blanc, Gabriella Wright, Laura Cepeda