Review of Everly (2015) by Ola G — 21 Dec 2015

Everly (Salma Hayek), a prostitute working for the brutal criminal overlord Taiko (Hiroyuki Watanabe), is being attacked in her apartment by Taiko's enforcers after he discovers that she has been working with the police to bring down his organization. However, though Taiko expected his men to kill her easily after torturing her, Everly retrieves a gun she had hidden and manages to kill all of her attackers. Taiko then begins a sadistic game of toying with Everly, dispatching numerous hired killers and offering the other prostitutes in the building (which he presumably owns) a bounty if they manage to kill her. Meanwhile, Everly attempts to contact her mother Edith (Laura Cepeda) and young daughter Maisey (Aisha Ayamah) to save them from other henchmen of Taiko and get them out of the situation alive...

This is a bloody and violently senseless B-action flick that fails to find that perfect balance between a cartoony vibe and an action movie that delivers something exciting within the genre. The script is ridiculous from most angles and the exploitation of violence and women is unfortunately taking over the film and it never seems to stop. It gets worse and worse and director Joe Lynch seems to love his own cleverness in finding terrible ways of killing off people during the running time. Salma Hayek does what she can with her role, and despite her full on performance and beauty she still ends up as a two dimensional character. The kick-ass action with Everly in the middle is just too much and I found myself wanting the movie to be over. The best and only good scene in the whole movie is when Everly is confronted in the end by her daughter Maisey played by the cute Aisha Ayamah. There´s something in that scene. But, the rest is not really worth a watch in my book.