A review of the new action movie “Heart Of Stone”
Sadly, everything about this Netflix movie is contrived, starting with the title. Heart is the name of a super-powerful system of artificial intelligence, just like The Entity in the “Dead Reckoning” segment of the “Mission: Impossible” franchise. Stone is the surname of the special agent at the heart of the plot (see what I did there?. We know that Rachel does not have a heart of stone because she is kind to the cat.The money men have obviously influenced the international casting. So Israeli Gal Godot is the eponymous spy and, while she was pretty as “Wonder Woman” and we know that she’s an expert in various martial arts, she is not a very good actor. The other plucky female role is filled by Alia Bhatt who is now a big star in the Indian film market. For female viewers, we have Jamie Dornan from “Fifty Shades Of Grey”. Don’t forget the wider Asian market: Jing Lusi and B D Wong are there. The one star actor in the cast is Glenn Close who is given very little to do.
From the very beginning, there are some lively action sequences, although they are very derivative, and there is some fine location shooting in Portugal, Morocco and Iceland. The main problem – as usual with action movies – is the script. The plotting is farcical and the dialogue is weak. But, as a TV movie, it fills an evening.