Colombiana is a 2011 action movie starring Zoe Saldaña, written and produced by Luc Besson. The film follows Cataleya Restrepo, daughter of a member of a Colombian cartel. Her parents were killed when she was nine, forcing her to flee to Chicago to live with her uncle. Using her uncle's tutelage and own intelligence, Cataleya becomes a beautiful and deadly assassin driven by vengeance for her parents' deaths.
This work provides examples of:
- 555: Delaney's mobile number, shown while it's being traced.
- Action Girl:
- Cataleya herself. Even as a girl she's capable of surprising a hardened gangster and escaping. Then she's trained to be an expert assassin later by her gangster uncle.
- Her mother Alicia knows how to handle a BFG as well.
- Age-Appropriate Angst: Young Cataleya, after watching her parents killed in front of her, sheds a single tear. She doesn't really cry until much later when she reaches Tio Emilio. Justified in that she had other things to worry about at the moment. Years later, though, Cataleya breaks into sobs immediately after seeing her grandmother's body.
- Air-Vent Passageway: Cataleya sneaks through the ventilation system of the jail to get to her target. Somewhat subverted, as despite her slender frame the vents are still claustrophobically small and she has to improvise a way past a fan. Later, she uses the vents in her building to escape the FBI raid on her house.
- Anachronism Stew:
- SD cards and Xena: Warrior Princess did not exist in 1992. But since it would have been harder to explain to viewers who Chun-Li is, as well as trying to find a way to get Cataleya to eat a CD...
- Danny's phone is an iPhone 3G, which likewise did not exist at the time the scene is set.
- Anti-Hero: Cataleya herself is either a Type IV or a Type V, being a professional assassin, albeit one with sympathetic motivations.
- Asshole Victim: Ross notes that all of Cataleya's victims are scumbag criminals.
- Bathroom Break-Out: After the FBI fly her to the US in exchange for the information her father gave her, Cataleya gives them the slip by pretending she needs the bathroom. By the time the agent who was escorting her realises she's taking too long and goes to check on her, she's already long gone.
- Beautiful Dreamer: This backfires on Cataleya when her boyfriend takes a photo of her sleeping and shows it to his friend, who decides to run a check through a friend in the police department to find out who the mystery girlfriend is.
- BFG: They don't get much bigger than the Blaser R93 sniper rifle Cataleya uses to threaten Steven into giving up Don Luis' location.
- Black-and-Gray Morality: While Marco is evil, Cataleya is an assassin.
- Book Ends: Emilio's first appearance consists of him brutally beating a man tied to a chair. His last appearance consists of Cataleya finding his bloodied body tied to a chair, having apparently been killed in the exact same matter.
- Break-In Threat: The ponzi guy wakes up amidst his sleeping Paid Harem to find the word THIEF and an orchid (the assassin's Calling Card) painted on his chest. He then finds all his bodyguards have been murdered. It gets worse.
- Cacophony Cover Up: A SWAT team is raiding the protagonist's apartment and makes an explosive entry; at the same time she uses an explosive charge to blow a hole through a wall to make her escape into the lift shaft.
- Calling Card: Cataleya draws a cataleya orchid on her victims.
- The Cartel: Run by Don Luis, with Cataleya's father as his partner until he tries to pull out and gets killed for it. Cataleya declares war on them as a result.
- Chekhov's Gun: When Cataleya feeds her dogs early in the movie, they didn't move to eat until she commands them to "eat." Later, she feeds Don Luis to them.
- The Commies Made Me Do It: Cataleya tells Agent Ross she'll kill a member of his family every week if he doesn't get Sandoval's location from the CIA.
- Determinator: Nothing is going to stop Cataleya from avenging her parents. Not Emilio, not the FBI, not Don Luis' men - nothing.
- Dirty Coward: Don Luis just quakes and trembles as he hears Cataleya kill his men.
- Dramatic Drop: Cataleya drops her pistol when she sees Emilio's body.
- Dramatic Irony: Ross consistently refers to the Tag Killer as male and, when one of the detectives finds evidence that Valerie Phillips may have been the killer, Ross summarily ignores it and insists that the killer can't be a woman. The viewer, of course, knows that "Valerie Phillips" is just an alias of Cataleya, who is the Tag Killer.
- Electrified Bathtub: Shown in a montage of Cataleya's previous kills, along with Camping a Crapper for another victim.
- Every Car Is a Pinto: Averted. No cars blow up in the movie, even the one Cataleya unloads a whole magazine into.
- False Reassurance: After shooting Willie in the legs, Cataleya tells him, "I'm not going to kill you." Willie is, at that precise moment, kneeling atop the glass ceiling of his shank tank. No prizes for guessing what happens next.
- Fanservice Extra: Willie, the Ponzi scheme guy, has a Paid Harem of four lingerie-clad women. Subverted in that it's played for Fan Disservice as he's an overweight, middle-aged man, and girls are clearly drugged out of their minds.
- Flower Motif: The "Cataleya" orchid (also "Colombiana
" is a real kind of orchid). - Fruit Cart: During the opening chase scene, a motorbike rider does a dramatic slide into bowls of spices.
- Genre Savvy: Cataleya's father quickly realizes that Don Luis is going to try to have him killed after seemingly giving him permission to quit because Don Luis was being far too calm about such a significant and somewhat insulting request from one of his men.
- Get into Jail Free: Our introduction to the protagonist as an adult Professional Killer involves her suddenly ramming a police car while Playing Drunk. The police put her in a cell overnight to sober up; she breaks out of the cell, kills a criminal who's being held overnight there by Federal Marshalls, then gets back in her cell as an alibi. Unfortunately the feds realise the killer had to have been in the building, so start checking into everyone held in custody.
- Gory Discretion Shot:
- We don't see the deaths of Cataleya's parents, only a close-up of Cataleya's horrified face and the sound of numerous gunshots.
- This happens at the end with the death of Don Luis; after Cataleya orders her dogs to attack him, it cuts to the outside of the van, rocking violently as he's mauled to death.
- Hero Antagonist: The FBI and the police are, from their perspective, merely trying to stop "the Tag Killer", a prolific Serial Killer with 22 known victims as of the start of the film. Ross ends up cooperating with Cataleya once he learns of her motivation (though it helps that she threatens him quite extensively).
- Heroes Love Dogs: Played with, Cataleya is explicitly told that she's spoiling her dogs, to which she replies that she's merely training them. We get to see at the end exactly what she was training them for.
- Impaled Palm: When Marco asks young Cataleya what she wants, she says that she wants to kill his boss, right as she stabs his hand onto the table.
- Improvised Weapon: Cataleya and Marco's climactic fight takes place in one of the bathrooms of Don Luis' mansion, and sees them trying to strangle each other with towels and stab each other with toothbrushes.
- Insecurity Camera: Played Straight in her first hit, as she's trying to frame a guard - she tilts one camera to point away from the scene, and gains access to Rizzo's cell by holding the unconscious guard up to another camera in such a way that it hides her from view. Subverted later during her escape from her apartment building, as when she shoots out some cameras to hide her movement, it tells the FBI exactly where she is.
- It Works Better with Bullets: The loan shark picks up a pair of Desert Eagles from dead guards and tries to use them on Cataleya. Turns out she emptied them beforehand. Justified, since the target wasn't a gun person and the handgun's massive weight would help disguise the lack of bullets.
- Kansas City Shuffle: Cataleya does one (that involves her dogs) on the Big Bad near the end of the movie.
- Karmic Death: Willie (a sleazy businessman) is eaten by the sharks he kept beneath his swimming pool.
- Kick the Dog: Cataleya does this by killing a gangster and framing a police guard for the murder.
- Laser Sight: During Ross' confrontation with Steve, Cataleya makes her presence known via the red dot on Steve's chest.
- Le Parkour: By a 9 year old schoolgirl, no less. As well as one of the Mooks chasing her.
- Little Miss Badass: Cataleya already showed extreme skills as a 9 year old, pinning a gangster's hand to the table then escaping his well-armed associates through Le Parkour.
- Ms. Fanservice: Cataleya. Just count the number of times she's naked, partially naked, wet, or wearing skintight clothing.
- Not Staying for Breakfast: Cataleya always leaves her boyfriend Delaney early in the morning after they have sex. The one time she oversleeps, she reacts as if she's made a grave mistake.
- Pants-Positive Safety: A nice bit of fanservice with Cataleya dancing in her apartment with a Beretta Storm shoved in the back of her short shorts. Followed by a Shower Scene and Oral Fixation.
- Parental Abandonment: Both of Cataleya's parents were killed in front of her by a drug baron's gunmen.
- Pet the Dog: Cataleya looks to be going into Death Seeker territory after they kill the last of her family, until she realizes her dogs are family too, and brings them along. They get a part in the action too.
- Playing Drunk: Cataleya does this (hilariously!) to get arrested and thrown in jail with one of her assassination targets.
- Precious Photo: Emilio has one of his brother's (Cataleya's father) family. After passing it on to Cataleya, she treasures it as well.
- Properly Paranoid: Cataleya empties the guns her target might use, searches an FBI agent's house for hidden cameras, and seems to have planned an air-vent escape from her apartment on the chance it's ever raided.
- Roaring Rampage of Revenge:
- With a healthy side of More Dakka and a light garnishing of Guns Akimbo. Taken up to eleven after her last remaining relatives are killed. She dispenses with her ninja tactics, sends an RPG round through the front door and storms the place guns blazing.
- Her uncle Emilio went on one of his own after his son was killed, and admits that it did nothing for his grief.
- Red Shirt: The men who were supposed to be guarding Cataleya and her parents in the beginning all end up getting easily gunned down by the bad guys in just a few seconds.
- Resignations Not Accepted: Cataleya's father Fabio tried to peacefully walk away from his criminal lifestyle as an enforcer for drug baron Don Luis Sandoval. Luis acted like he would accept this before immediately sending out his gunmen to kill Fabio along with his wife and Cataleya (only she survived).
- Revealing Cover Up: After learning that the flowers the Tag Killer paints on their victims are cataleya orchids, Ross tries to search the FBI database for "cataleya" only to get hit with a CIA "access denied" screen. This tells him that he's stumbled across something even bigger than he'd expected, and Steve's Obstructive Bureaucrat nature when he tries to gain access only confirms it, but he can't make any further headway until Cataleya herself gets involved.
- Solemn Ending Theme: Johnny Cash's cover of "Hurt" plays over the end credits.
- Spy Catsuit: Cataleya changes into one during her mission to kill Rizzo during the prison scene.
- Stuff Blowing Up: Why would the SWAT team blow up Cataleya's front door? (In an apartment building?) They could have easily rammed it open.
- Tempting Fate: On seeing a laser dot on his chest, the CIA Jerkass boasts that the window is armored against a direct hit from a 57mm shell. Cue warning shot fired through the glass. Damn these government contractors...
- Threatening Shark: Cataleya offs a sleazy businessman (who got away with a huge Ponzi scheme) by dumping him in his own Shark Pool.
- Translation Convention: The Hispanic actors hardly ever speak Spanish, even in the scenes in Colombia, but they do make sure to pronounce Spanish words correctly.
- Unwitting Instigator of Doom: A friend of Danny's trying to help him find out more about Cataleya to further their romance sends her picture to a relative who works in a police station to find out more about her. Her photo going through the database alerts Ross and blows her cover.
- Waif-Fu: Cataleya does plenty of this against The Dragon.
