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Hello, my name is Anna, and I’m here to inform you that the 2019 film Anna is on HBO this weekend, on Saturday, February 29, at 8 p.m. ET.
For those of you looking to catch this 2019 action thriller on the small screen, here’s a primer on the film. Anna follows on a similar theme as some of French writer/director Luc Besson‘s other films, like La Femme Nikita, which starred Anne Parillaud as a sexy action hero; and Lucy, which starred Scarlett Johansson as a sexy action hero. This time the sexy action hero, Anna, is played by Russian fashion model Sasha Luss.
Unlike Lucy, Anna doesn’t have superpowers, but she is a KGB assassin working for a handler named Olga (Helen Mirren), so like, close enough. When the CIA discovers Anna, she agrees to work as a double agent under a CIA handler named Miller (Cillian Murphy). Many badass action scenes ensue.
According to Decider Digital Designer Dillen Phelps, Anna is “fine” but does contain “a particular scene that would have any fan of the genre howling with delight,” which is Anna’s “epic slaughter of countless bodyguards” in a restaurant fight. Dillen is our resident martial arts expert, so when he says that Anna “executes an advanced hand to hand style that is a fun blend with some Israeli and Russian influences,” I believe him!
When asked to elaborate over Slack, Dillen, the madman, came to talk to me in person about what he called, “a blah movie with a stand-out fight scene.” We both agreed that that 2017’s Atomic Blonde was the superior movie about a badass blonde spy who’s working as a double agent.
Critics agree with us as well, considering Anna currently holds a 36 percent on the review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes. But hey, while one super cool fight scene might not be enough of a reason to drive to a movie theater, it’s certainly enough of a reason to hit play on HBO. Enjoy!
