A man with a past finds a woman on his dock who seems to have none. Soon, she finds herself hunted and he will go any end to save her.
From a story by Marko Zaror and Daniel Zirilli and written for the screen by Gina Aguard, Christopher M. Don, Liam O’Neill, and Marko Zaror, and directed by Brandon Slagle, Affinity is an action film with a touch of science fiction that is very minimal, something that barely affects the story beyond giving its start and its reason for happening, which may sound odd here. The film as is feels like a fully action film with some touches of science fiction when its story depends on the science fiction to get started. Overall, the story here works and is a great excuse for plenty of fight scenes which are plentiful. The writing works and so does the direction, showing that a good team can pull off a solid action film on a medium budget.
The cast here is led by Marko Zaror as the hero, the man who has PTSD and lost his brother at war, a man who needs to find purpose, which he finds after a mysterious woman, played by Jane Mirro. Zaror gives the type of performance his fans are used to, decent acting with kickass fighting. His first fight scene in this movie is fantastic (and fantastically shot, more on that later) and so is the last one. The performance he gives will make action fans very happy. Jane Mirro here gives a sort of perpetually confused-looking performance, something that works with the part she has and the innocence Athena is supposed to represent. Joining Zaror and Mirro on the “good guys” side of the story are Louis Mandylor as Joe and Brooke Ence as Fitch and both do quite well here, giving their characters personality and letting the lead be the hero while lending an assist. On the bad guy side of things, Brahim Chab shines as Krieger, a character of a few words, but a man capable of taking on Zaror in a fight, something that is not easy to pull off. Their main fight is one for the books here. The supporting cast also does decent work, some of them as basic bad guys, some of them as fighters, and a bunch as characters meant to establish the universe here and advance the story.
Now, this being an action film with some crazy fight scenes, the fight choreography is really important. Using Zaror and his skills to put these together was a fantastic idea and bringing in Tony Jaa’s stunt team was an excellent more. These folks know how to fight, how to make it look good on film, and how to entertain. To go with these fights the cinematography by Niccolo De La Fere is fantastic. After learning that the first fight sequence was shot by him holding the camera and moving around the fight, the look of it is even more impressive. The film also uses a drone sporadically to great effect, especially in one scene near the end that will not be spoiled here. As a small blemish on the whole here, the intro to the film is clearly AI, complete with garbled language on missing posters, something that thankfully is only on the opening and does not appear throughout the film.
Affinity is an action sci-fi film that hits just right on the action beats and is almost low on the sci-fi aspect while the story depends on it to get started. The fights are excellent, and the cinematography is memorable. There is a lot here to watch and rewatch, so fans of these types of films should be more than happy.
This is an excellent action/martial arts movie with astonishing scenes. I am looking for but cannot find the singer/band of the song at the end of the movie one can hear in the beginning of the credits at the end of the movie. I have been looking to the band Los Innecesarios Del Manana (mentionned in the end of movie credits) but cannot find anything unfortunately.
I checked with the director earlier today and he said most of the music and songs were done by the composer.