In one scene of “Heart Of Stone” there are star cameos by Glenn Close and others. But this scene does not only look really bad and therefore ridiculous, for our editor Björn Becher it is also very problematic in other respects
Warning: The following text contains SPOILERS to “Heart Of Stone”!
The secret organization Charter, dedicated to world peace, names its members after a deck of cards. “Heart Of Stone” main character Rachel Stone (Gal Gadot) is thus the “Nine of Hearts.” Each team of the charter is led by the “King”. So there can be a maximum of four kings who have divided the supervision of the world. But this also clearly shows how little the charter is really interested in world(!) peace.
Because in one scene of the movie we get to know all four kings. Stone’s boss King of Hearts (Sophie Okonedo), confers with the King of Clubs (B.D. Wong), the King of Diamonds (Glenn Close) and the King of Spades (Mark Ivanir). Unfortunately, the scene looks really bad – because acting legend Glenn Close, “Law & Order: SVU” star B.D. Wong as well as award-winning European character actor Mark Ivanir (“Schindler’s List”) obviously shot their part in different places around the world.
How a lot of green screen and miserably placed cuts are used to give the impression that the four characters are really together here makes the whole scene look super-ridiculous in my eyes. But one could still be amused about that, if the moment wouldn’t still transport a highly problematic subtext.
NO ONE IS RESPONSIBLE FOR AFRICA
For as is implied in the scene and confirmed throughout the film, the kings are responsible for different areas of the world. King of Diamonds, as a former CIA executive, for America; King of Clubs, who once worked for Chinese intelligence, probably for Asia. For King of Hearts and King of Spades it is not made so clear, but we may assume that they divided Western and Eastern Europe. Thus, all of the Heart team’s missions are in Western Europe as well, and their base is in London.
But this makes it clear that Africa is quite a blind spot for this organization. Of all places, the continent shaken by numerous wars is indifferent to an organization so committed to world peace? One might dismiss this at first: maybe it’s just an oversight, there are just four suits of cards. But the film even picks up on it itself – but doesn’t make it any better.
DEPLOYMENT IN SENEGAL – BECAUSE NOBODY CARES
When villain Parker (Jamie Dornan) and hacker Keya (Alia Bhatt) want to steal the AI hidden in space, they make sure its container comes down over Senegal. How logical this is quickly becomes clear when Charter realizes that their sheltered treasure is on the way down: there is no way to intervene because “within 500 miles”, as the original English version puts it, there is not a single operational force. So the so powerful organization ensuring world peace with agents* infiltrated everywhere has absolutely no one on duty within a radius of more than 800 kilometers. To put it in perspective: That is an area of over two million square kilometers, which the charter obviously ignores.
The fact that the continent of Africa, which after all makes up 22 percent of the total land area of the earth, is not of interest when it comes to world peace could be taken up critically. After all, “Heart Of Stone” criticizes the actions of the charter anyway. But in the script by Greg Rucka (“The Old Guard”) and Allison Schroeder (“Hidden Figures”) everything gets much worse instead.
– gal gadot answering a question if there would be a possible crossover between the movies heart of stone and the old guard 2:
“charlize, i love, i’m a huge fan of hers, she’s such a special human being that i would love to work with, so you never know!” pic.twitter.com/9YjRAxZye3
– charlize theron daily (@dailytheron) August 10, 2023
Gal Gadot using a parachute to “ski” down a mountain is the kind of insane action scene you can expect to see in Heart of Stone! Now on Netflix. pic.twitter.com/TC3kJO5v1K
– Netflix (@netflix) August 11, 2023
In the episode set in Senegal shortly after, every cliché about the continent is served – here you can’t trust anyone, because even the woman who seems so nice and helpful at first glance only wants to lead you to a gang of child soldier mercenaries who control an entire village, where everyone shoots at our heroine with a big gun.
Maybe “Heart Of Stone 2” will address the problem at some point. After all, when “Heart Nine” Rachel Stone and Keya, now recruited as a “wild card” for the organization, team up at the end, they do so with the goal of making the charter a tiny bit better. It doesn’t sound like this is also about at least a little peace in Africa – but let’s be surprised.
But how “Heart Of Stone” treats Africa (and obviously completely consciously) is in the end of course only the tip of the iceberg of a Netflix film that failed for many other reasons and was incredibly badly staged, especially in many action scenes.
