recommended

Perfect cast and a good story

It's easily one of the freshest, sharpest and most enjoyable films of this year.

The film may be flawed, but its message is not.

Foul language, violent, there are many far better ways to spend 2 hours than to watch this film.

MOMENTUM is a modern-day action thriller with a female lead and plenty of action to see it through. It was shot in a nice-looking South Africa by a first-time director and it did very badly on release at the box office, although I'm not too sure why. I suspect that the appetite for straight action movies has disappeared these days as people turn to superhero flicks and other outlandish variants for their thrills. Me, I prefer a good BOURNE-style thriller any day of the week and MOMENTUM did the trick for me. It's obviously been made on a limited budget so it's a surprise that the explosive action really hits home and provides all the necessary excitement. With this and THE NOVEMBER MAN Olga Kurylenko proves that she's got what it takes to lead a thriller, although the real stand-out here is James Purefoy's urbane villain who seems to be modelled on his role in THE FOLLOWING. Purefoy is a delight and adds plenty of wry humour to his part. Morgan Freeman is wasted and some of the plotting is a little routine, but otherwise this is a cat-and-mouse thriller that delivers the goods.

Now there's one really nice action movie! Finally something good, and not Antman, MouseMan, Caterpilar Man and more of such nonsense. Which is most of what was made in 2015. James Purefoy is his usual genius, the man is just absolutely stunning! Olga does a real convincing job too and the chemistry between the two is good. To be honest, I think Olga was brilliant! Did I mention James Purefoy is stunning? God, I love that man! The action and fighting is good, I like that sort of thing -and if I didn't, I wouldn't be watching this type of movie. I also liked the story. Camera work is also good, in short, a really good movie! I really don't understand why it gets such low ratings. I would love to see a Momentum 2.

A group of very high-tech thieves are in the process of robbing a bank vault. It goes well, they get what they want--a bunch of diamonds. Unnoticed to them, along with the diamonds there was something else. On their way out though, the operation goes to heck. They start fighting among each other, two end up dead, one ends up unmasked in front of all the bank hostages/witnesses--it's the lovely Olga. The fighting continues on the way back and during the stop before they split.Back at a hotel Alex (Olga) takes a bath and gets a message from one of her colleagues. She runs to his room and almost as soon as she gets there someone knocks on the door. He ordered a call girl to visit him, behind the girl, a bunch of thugs and their leader Mr. Washington (Purefoy). Alex manages to hide under the bed. The other girl is killed and Olga's colleague is tortured. Washington wants "the drive" from him. But he claims not to know what he's talking about but instead talks about the bed being made in China. Alex finds the made in China sticker that's holding the drive. During torture the guy ends up dead. Olga finds a gun and is ready to shoot Washington but the gun is empty.What follows is the bad guys chasing after Alex in the hotel, on the streets. She makes it to her other colleague's loft who aside from doing heists is an artist who only has a single shotgun for protection. Alex calls the wife of her dead friend and asks for a bag he left for her, but the wife wants noting to do with her. Washington arrives, Alex has to hide again, he redials the phone, gets the address of the wife. Now both Alex and Washington will have to get there in time. The wife in the meantime finds a bunch of passports and money for Alex as well as some diamonds.What we lean in the meantime is that Washington's boss is a US senator. The call girl in the hotel for some reason had an embarrassing video of him. And the drive is his and he wants it back at all costs.Eventually at some abandoned plant, Alex confronts Washington and they make a deal that later at 9pm she will hand over the drive at an airport, which leads to some more action and surprises. We learn what's on the drive--information about an important event. As the senator says at the start of the movie, powerful people create events to change reality, "you will get your war, I will get my desk." Momentum is one of those rare action movies that aside from having great action also has a deep political story behind it, one that isn't just relevant to events in the past but is also relevant to the current situation in the world. And for a good chunk, the action is non-stop. Once Alex meets Washington in the plant things slow down and pick up again for the finale.Kurylenko is attractive, likable, and has shown that she can work with any role given to her. And she does great as an action heroine. What was a great surprise to me was Purefoy, for whom I've never cared so far because his acting is usually too subdued or too over the top and he overemphasizes his odd accent. Here though, he absolutely shines as the delicate yet vicious and smart criminal. The director did a great job in getting him to focus and produce an ideal performance. Speaking of the director, Campanelli, surprisingly, this is directorial debut...and he aces it. As often happens with these movies though, important aspects are edited so fast that to me it was unclear who had how many diamonds and where. I hope there will be sequels of this. Now that studios are doing nothing other than cranking out ridiculous superhero CGI nonsense, it's refreshing to see a smart action thriller like Momentum.