Everly (2014)

The only reason for the 3/10 rating is for Salma Hayek's body; otherwise it would be a zero. I guess that Selma needed a quick payday and wished to visit Belgrade. Here she is Everly, evidently some mob boss's slave girlfriend. She is trapped in an opulent apartment and a series of men and women enter and attempt to kill her. Somehow even a SWAT team with laser sights are unable to do so. A Japanese man appears along the way and proceeds to torture Every just for his amusement. Her mom and little girl show up and the killings and general mayhem continue. This is bad comic book material; a sort of low grade "Kill Bill" without Tarantino's brilliant dialogue. Do not waste your time on this garbage.

Fmovies: Everly is a bit fantastic in scenario and plot but it makes up for all the pot holes with some very sexy action. The lead actress is really tough and looks amazing to. The director knows how to play the audience to a certain degree and seems more authentic than the average Q.T effort. A harp back to the real exploitation movies of the 1970's.

Smokin' Aces + Kill Bill + Dredd = Everly

I found out about Everly late last year because of Fantastic Fest, and I've been pretty excited about it. It's about a woman faces down assassins sent by her ex, a mob boss, while holed up in her apartment - which sounded pretty similar to two movies I loved in 2012 (Dredd and The Raid: Redemption), and the pictures I saw during post made it look like a lot of fun.

Selma Hayek plays the titular Everly, a Mexican prostitute. At 48, she looks great, and I haven't seen her kick ass like this since Desperado. She's the sole focus here, but some of the side characters are pretty interesting. My favorite was a character named Sadist, an old Japanese speaking psycho with some tricks in his bag. It's directed by Joe Lynch, a pretty small time filmmaker best known for directing Wrong Turn 2.

Everly isn't going to win any awards for it's story. It's as one dimensional at best, and still manages to make little sense at times. It often falls into action movie tropes like bad guys hesitating to talk before pulling the trigger (of course leading to their demise), something that disappointed me seeing that Lynch was brought up on a steady diet of B-movies. Everly does bring one thing to the table though, and that is a hell of a lot of fun. There's no skimping on the blood here, people are shot, sliced, and blown up in all it's gory glory. There's a particular shot using an elevator that is amazingly awesome. It really tapped into what I love about action movies at points.

The scope of the movie is as small as the budget, and although the story is pretty "been-there-done-that", if you're looking for some fun action that's not taking itself seriously, you really can't go wrong with Everly.

My final score: B+

Everly fmovies. I'd put this movie on the same list as things like, Smoking Aces or Shoot em Up. The effects really aren't too bad, some pretty decent gore effects and more than copious amounts of blood, but all the gun play was surprisingly well done. Throw in a few unexpectedly touching moments, some rather clever lines, and you have a rather enjoyable movie. As long as you don't expect any kind of real plot at least. The most impressive thing about the movie is that 95% of it is all done in the same room, and not many movies can pull that off without having it get boring, but this one did.

As I said in the summary, it's a brainless bloodbath with a strong, sexy female lead. If you don't mind the gore and you just want something to watch, this one isn't a total waste of time.

"I will make sure I die tonight and I don't want to give any of them the satisfaction." After assassins are sent by her ex to kill her, Everly (Hayak) must fight them off alone. After her mother and daughter show up things start to get personal. There are many action movies that start off slow, they have almost a half hour of character development and story to get you invested in the movie, then end with the action to keep you watching. This is one that forgoes all that. It starts off in what seems like the middle of the movie and never lets up. Wall to wall action. The movie is very graphic and intense, much like the original Oldboy, the movie is hard to watch in some parts. Selma Hayak hasn't been in a movie in awhile and its strange that this is the one she came back for. When I think bad ass females she isn't the first name I think of, but she does hold her own. Overall, exciting and full of action but be prepared for what you will experience. I give this a C+.

My dad likes to ask me sometimes regarding action movies: "Is there a purpose to all this?" There IS no purpose. The whole movie is one big, fat excuse to slam a bunch of crazy action scenes at you. As an exercise in brutal violence, it succeeds. It's got style, and it's even got some genuinely funny moments of black humour to go along with it. The movie's premise is absolutely ridiculous and stupid, and laughably insane, but it plows through it with an almost completely straight face. In that respect, the movie is a deadpan masterpiece.

Anyway. Salma Hayek's acting, along with Joe Lynch's neat direction, are both too good for this type of movie. This is a modern-day exploitation film at its most blatant. This is Die Hard with Salma Hayek and the Yakuza. It's limited to one floor of an apartment building as a setting, and it's set during Christmas, and the main character is trapped in one room. Only unlike Die Hard, this movie has some truly cruel material to make you squirm in it. I mean wow.

Despite its flaws (and it has a lot of them) it was an entertaining movie. It's shallow, it's not all too smart, and for people with weak stomachs, it's pretty much unwatchable. Its low- budgetness isn't all that obvious unless you REALLY look for it, and most of its effects are refreshingly practical. It's nice to see blood squibs in action movies this day and age, instead of the regular old CGI clouds we're stuck with eighty (or ninety?) percent of the time. Salma Hayek hasn't been this good since Desperado, and that was freaking 1995.