Guns And Girls magazine has a new cover girl - she's mixed martial artist Gina Carano and she may look awkward in a cocktail dress but she has thighs to die for (or die in) and a punch that ensures you stay punched.
"Is that your idea of relaxing?" asks Channing Tatum's Aaron to Carano's Mallory. "Wine and gun maintenance?"
Not exactly. Gina, you feel, is not one for frippery or indulgence. Besides, guns? Pah. Our gal enjoys the crunch of bone on flesh, the up close and personal kind of violence that requires an investment of time and muscle.
Mallory's angry. And you wouldn't like Mallory when she's angry. Somewhere along the line the hardcore black ops one-woman army has been double-crossed and her comrades are possibly her deadly enemies.
Either way, people want her dead and she has to cross Europe and get back the US to find some answers.
Stephen Soderbergh's revenge thriller is like Mallory: gets in, pulls no punches, gets the job done, gets out. There is a certain European aesthetic (set pieces in Barcelona and Dublin help) that brings to mind the downbeat directness of Ronin.
He takes a route previously travelled by Bourne - the back-to-basic mechanics of staying alive in a hostile world - but the fight sequences are straight from Giant Chicken v Peter Griffin: relentless, bone-crunching, inventive, blood-thirsty and snappy. Jason Statham's quaking.
This is Gina Carano's first movie. She said of herself: "I don't think I look or act like anybody else. I'm slightly awkward. So I always knew that if it was going it happen, somebody was going to have to come find me."
And Soderbergh did. To ease her in, he has called in a strong support cast, to compensate for Gina's limited range. Ewan McGregor, Michael Fassbender, Michael Douglas, Antonio Banderas, Channing Tatum, Bill Paxton, as her patriot dad, all know what its like to face down a buffalo in heels.
"Don't think of her as woman," says one character has he employs an assassin to finish her off. "It would be a mistake to do that."
Move over Jolie. We could be seeing the creation of the first genuine female action superstar. But don't dwell on it. That's not necessary here.
Just sit back and get your face entertained.
