I was pleasantly suprised.
First off, it was written by Luc Besson and Robert Mark Kamen, who also have the very successful films, "Taken", "The Professional" and "The Fifth Element" under their belts. Luc Besson doesn't do one dimensional stories, whether it's a perfect being discovering themselves while saving the world, a father searching for his daughter and tearing Paris apart as he does it or a cleaner passing along his knowledge and learning to live and love for the first time in his life, he has more going on than just the mayhem on screen. That was definitely the case with "Colombiana."
The story openes in Bogata circa 1992 with Cataleya's (Zoe Saldana) parents being killed in front of her by men in the employ of Don Luis. She escapes thanks to her father prepping a way out of Colombia and passage to get to relatives in Chicago. Her uncle Emilio, played by Cliff Curtis, is a career criminal, like her father, and tries to direct Cateleya out of a life of crime, but all she sees is revenge and he reluctantly educates her in the family business and wetworks.
We smash cut 15 years later and discover Cataleya has become a very successful assassin who is able to get to anyone, anywhere. Unfortunately, her preoccupation with revenge threatens to expose her to the FBI, who have been chasing her for years and Don Luis. It all comes to a head when Cataleya's boyfriend (Michael Vartan) takes a photo of her and his friend, wanting to do a background check on his boys' mysterious girlfriend, ends up getting her found, along with her remaining family.
The ending is predictably bloody, but the violence isn't gratuitous or spattered across the screen.
A lot of the critics didn't like the movie, but though it's not exactly high art, it is a good story with a lot of action and a lot of heart.
Obviously, she knows how to handle a gun...lol
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