{blackbabes} 'Colombiana': Zoe Saldana is killer

Colombiana
* * 1/2 out of four

Stars: Zoe Saldana, Cliff Curtis, Michael Vartan, Jordi Molla, Beto Benites
Director: Olivier Megaton
Distributor: TriStar Pictures
Rating:PG-13 for violence, disturbing images, intense sequences of action, sexuality and brief strong language.
Running time:1 hour, 47 minutes
Opens Friday nationwide

Zoe Saldana plays an assassin's assassin in Colombiana.

With her calm ruthlessness and skill with guns, knives and any makeshift weapon, she makes Rambo look like Ghandi. But unlike most assassins, she occasionally elicits our sympathy, thanks to the back story that focuses on her childhood trauma.

There are some stock action sequences as well as captivating chases, particularly an early one involving Saldana's character Cataleya as a 10-year-old, played by Amandla Stenberg. The wide-eyed girl is pursued by a posse of Colombian thugs around the mean streets of Bogota. Wearing a loose-fitting schoolgirl uniform, the innocent-looking Cataleya leaps off roofs and slides down walls with the skill of a ninja, evading the villains who killed her mother and father.

She cleverly escapes to the USA and goes to live in Chicago with her uncle Emilio (Cliff Curtis), who delivers his lines with dark humor.

For example, when young Cataleya earnestly tells him she once wanted to be Xena the warrior princess when she grows up but has decided instead to be a killer, he responds with simple acquiescence. Without batting an eye, he agrees to be her teacher in the nefarious ways of assassination.

Still, he urges her to go to middle school so she won't be an uneducated murderer.

Obviously, the film calls for suspension of disbelief.

It's all about retribution and vengeance for Cataleya. She makes her living as a hired gun but tracks the movements of the men who killed her parents and takes them down one by one. Her overriding goal is to kill the mobster (Beto Benites) who ordered the murders.

Saldana is in top form for the acrobatics required in the role, and she makes the gritty determination of her character believable.

A long, tense, exciting scene in which she gets herself arrested in order to execute an intricate hit on a prisoner is a highlight, and it makes up for some generic sequences.

Her romantic scenes with boyfriend Danny (Michael Vartan), who has no clue what she does for a living, help to humanize her.

An unexpected bonus: Audiences get a cursory horticultural lesson. Cataleya (also known as cattleya) is a kind of orchid native to South America and known for its showy flowers. (After a kill, the character signs her victims with a lipstick drawing of her floral namesake.)

This is a showy flower of an action film. Saldana doesn't get much of a chance to emote, but her action skills blossom.