February 18 - Hanna

Today’s movie is an action adventure film with a scene set on February 18. I hope you will enjoy this film and watch it tonight.  

HANNA          

Hanna and her father live alone in the Finnish arctic. He has trained her as a proficient fighter and hunter, as well as given her a through, if “ivory tower” education. Hanna keeps telling her father “she’s ready”. One day he digs up an electronic device with a switch. Her father tells Hanna that once the switch is thrown, it will tell Marissa Weigler where the are located and that it will not end until either Hanna or Marissa are dead. Hanna throws the switch and her father leaves. Marissa, who is a CIA agent sends a team to kill Hanna’s father, whose name is Erik Heller, a former CIA agent, but instead, after Hanna kills two of the team, she allows herself to be captured. She wakes up in a secret base. Hanna says she wants to speak to Marissa, who sends a double to meet with Hanna. On February 18, 2010, Hanna kills the double and escapes from the base, emerging in the Moroccan desert. [19:58 to 30:38; 31:02 to 31:10; 32:41 to 35:15] Marissa thinks back to when she killed Hanna’s mother. Hanna meets Sophie, a girl her age and her brother Miles who are British tourists traveling with their parents. Erik sneaks into Germany. Hanna persuades a hotel owner to let her spend the night in a storeroom and again meets up with Sophie and her family. Marissa hires a former agent, Isaacs, now a free-lance contract killer to track Hanna. When Sophie’s family leave for Spain, Hanna stows away in their camper. In Spain, Hanna and Sophie spend some time together on a double date with two Spanish boys that ends abruptly due to Hanna’s lack of social skills. The two girls become friends. Marissa tracks down and kills Hanna’s maternal grandmother. In Berlin, Erik escapes Marissa’s agents, but can’t manage to kill her. Hanna is traveling with Sophie’s family when  Isaacs catches up with them. Hanna fights Isaacs’s men in a container park and manages to escape. Marissa tricks Miles into telling her where Hanna was going in Berlin.  In Berlin, Hanna meets with Knepfler, a strange magician who lives in a fairy tale themed house in an abandoned amusement park. Marissa and her killers arrive. Hanna hides but overhears comments suggesting Erik is not her father. Confused, she does a computer search on genetic research and learns about her maternal grandmother. Hanna took documents stating she is genetically abnormal from the secret base. Hanna meets with Erik at her Grandmothers apartment, where she learns he is not her biological father. He had recruited women from abortion clinics for secret genetic experiments to produce supersoldiers. When Marissa terminated the program and wanted all the evidence disposed off, he tried to escape with Hanna and her mother.  Hanna and Erik fight, but when Marissa and her henchmen show up, he acts as a distraction so Hanna can escape. Erik kills Isaac, but is then killed by Marissa. Marissa tracks Hanna. She wounds Hanna, while Hanna shoots Marissa with an arrow. Hanna then uses Marissa’s own gun to kill her.

A morally ambiguous, but action packed film. Many questions are left unanswered in this movie, but the action scenes, especially Hanna’s escape and the container park fight are so good you really don’t care. Also noted for its unusual, but effective electronic music score by the Chemical Brothers.

The date is given in the film at 26:17 on a lab report

Producers - Leslie Holleran, Marty Adelstein and Scott Nemes

Director - Joe Wright

Screenplay - Seth Lochhead and David Farr

Runtime – 1 hour 51 minutes

Released – April 8, 2011

Starring –

Saoirse Ronan as Hanna Heller

Cate Blanchett as Marissa Wiegler

Eric Bana as Erik Heller

Jessica Barden as Sophie

Aldo Maland as Miles

Tom Hollander as Isaacs

Olivia Williams as Rachel

Jason Flemyng as Sebastian

Michelle Dockery as False Marissa

Vicky Krieps as Johanna Zadek

Martin Wuttke as Knepfler (Mr. Grimm)

Sebastian Hulk as Titch

Copyright by Ivan Walters 2014.