Leitch | 2017 | USA

4th or 5th watch; a singular pleasure but one I had apparently not indulged in for five years. I’ve never liked Charlize Theron as much as I do here – she’s all in and understands the assignment. Highly stylised from lights to soundtrack (a frequent spin before my turntable went kaput, and a good motivator to get it fixed), which has the effect of making this feel like a neon postcard from an electric moment in history (being the fall of the Berlin Wall).

What stops this from being merely flash are the moments of reversion to verisimilitude – take, for example, the deservedly famous stairwell fight (which is itself only one component of a longer and consistently stunning action sequence).

Here the music stops and the light is natural (read: bleak). The scene unfolds in real time (as a simulated “oner” with hidden cuts). The only sounds are those of punches landing, guns clicking (and firing), and bodies hitting surfaces. A bag of supplies is thrown and the clattering of its contents hitting the ground echoes throughout the building. You are instantly drawn in; a part of it. When it’s over, you realise you’d sort of stopped breathing. Heady, rather miraculous stuff.