It must be said, seeing a covert ops agent running, climbing and stealthily making her way around the streets, lanes and hotels of Dublin is quite a surreal experience.

Who would have thought that if you run through the car park of the Royal Irish Automobile Club and into the lane beyond, you can sneakily make your way into the kitchen area of Burger King on Grafton Street (if the staff are turning a blind eye, of course)?

Or that if you run up to the roof of Wynn’s Hotel on Upper Abbey Street, provided you don’t have a fear of heights and are a really good climber, you can make your way from there to the end of the street without having to walk past people on the footpaths below? Hmm.

Although only part of the film was shot in Dublin, Oscar winning director Steven Soderbergh really makes the most of this section of the film - it has never occurred to me that Dublin’s city centre could actually be so well suited to a gritty action flick.

The two completely separate worlds of the glittering Shelbourne Hotel and the confined, claustrophobic lanes and entranceways contrast really well with each other so the viewer feels the character’s disorientation (although we know this environment so well).

I never really appreciated just how appropriate Russborough House is for filming a cloak, daggers and money film either. There’s something about the sumptuousness of the surroundings mixed with the rambling corridors that would really have you looking over your shoulder as you wander around (in the best way possible, of course).

The cast is pretty good too, starring Channing Tatum (Step Up), Ewan McGregor (The Men Who Stare at Goats), Michael Fassbender (Inglourious Basterds), Antonio Banderas (The Skin I Live In), Bill Paxton (Big Love), Michael Douglas (Traffic) and Michael Angarano (Red State). It is the first outing for mixed martial arts expert Gina Carano.

She stars in the demanding lead role as Mallory Kane, an exceptionally talented under cover agent whose boss is a government security contractor.

They post her on the most dangerous and covert of missions, as she is in high demand. After she secures freedom for a kidnapped Chinese journalist in Barcelona, she is betrayed and left to die by her own people while on a posting in Dublin that goes haywire.

The hunter now becomes the hunted by those who are shadowing her, but she can’t properly protect herself until she knows who exactly is trying to kill her. She now has to rely on her adaptability and cunning to stay alive, escape those who are following her, return to her family in New Mexico and, of course, seek vengeance.

Carano performs all her own stunts in the film, and it’s worth watching just for the novelty of seeing a woman kick ass, and the experience of seeing Dublin in a totally different light. 7/10
 

Christine Brookes