An action/thriller centered on a woman who faces down hitmen sent by her ex, a mob boss, while holed up in her apartment.

I found out about Everly late last year because of Fantastic Fest, and I've been pretty excited about it. It's about a woman faces down assassins sent by her ex, a mob boss, while holed up in her apartment - which sounded pretty similar to two movies I loved in 2012 (Dredd and The Raid: Redemption), and the pictures I saw during post made it look like a lot of fun.

Selma Hayek plays the titular Everly, a Mexican prostitute. At 48, she looks great, and I haven't seen her kick ass like this since Desperado. She's the sole focus here, but some of the side characters are pretty interesting. My favorite was a character named Sadist, an old Japanese speaking psycho with some tricks in his bag. It's directed by Joe Lynch, a pretty small time filmmaker best known for directing Wrong Turn 2.

Everly isn't going to win any awards for it's story. It's as one dimensional at best, and still manages to make little sense at times. It often falls into action movie tropes like bad guys hesitating to talk before pulling the trigger (of course leading to their demise), something that disappointed me seeing that Lynch was brought up on a steady diet of B-movies. Everly does bring one thing to the table though, and that is a hell of a lot of fun. There's no skimping on the blood here, people are shot, sliced, and blown up in all it's gory glory. There's a particular shot using an elevator that is amazingly awesome. It really tapped into what I love about action movies at points.

The scope of the movie is as small as the budget, and although the story is pretty "been-there-done-that", if you're looking for some fun action that's not taking itself seriously, you really can't go wrong with Everly.