Agents, action, suspense. Actually ideal ingredients for a successful Netflix evening. Only unfortunately, the current number 1 in the movies in minute 50 makes a fatal decision.
After watching a movie, do you sometimes regret having watched it to the end? Netflix originals usually don’t stick in my mind. Even more rarely, they can really sweep me away. Heart of Stone drew mediocre to poor reviews right out of the gate. Still, I gave Gal Gadot’s James Bond effort a chance – and was enthralled by the first 50 minutes. Which is why the action film’s subsequent failure is all the more galling.
Successful Netflix opening: Heart of Stone gets off to a really exciting start
Gal Gadot (Wonder Woman) plays the titular agent Rachel Stone in Heart of Stone. I didn’t know much more about Netflix’s latest action opus beforehand. So when the film hurls me like a clueless snowball into the backdrop of a snowy ski resort right at the start, I first have to learn my way around. And this puzzling opening immediately makes the thriller appealing.
Heart of Stone
While I’m still wondering why Gal Gadot – apparently as an apprentice – is left in the car, the rest of the MI6 team goes on a manhunt. With relish, Heart of Stone peels back the onion layers of its narrative: Rachel Stone isn’t just a rookie working for British intelligence. She’s actually a top spy for the secret peacemaker organization called Charter. In her double-cross, she must hide her true skills from MI6 team members. A strong opening for a spy movie. The friendly mole’s game of hide and seek reliably draws me into the film.
It continues convincingly: Heart of Stone unexpectedly has a beating heart
After that business trip to the mountains, Heart of Stone immediately pulls out the next unexpected twist. Despite its title, the Netflix film doesn’t have a “heart of stone,” but establishes a team full of surprisingly warm characters. The shoulder of bearded tech expert Bailey (Paul Ready) invites you to lean on in any emergency. Fighter Yang (Jing Lusi) always provides laughs with her patter. And quiet leader Parker (Jamie Dornan) has romantic potential.
Except, unfortunately, these lovely people aren’t Rachel’s charter team, but the backstabbing MI6 group. And Agent Stone is forbidden to form relationships with the unknowing. That Gal Gadot’s secret agent longs to belong here anyway is completely believable. I kept thinking of the Mission: Impossible series, whose appeal for me is not only Tom Cruise and his stunts, but also engaging supporting characters like Luther and Benji.
Heart of Stone
Heart of Stone shows its enormous human potential between action stints of shared café visits and hotel room dances. So when Gal Gadot’s character must finally choose between her secret identity and her forbidden friends in Lisbon, the stakes are really high. I’m emotionally invested. But instead of putting my feelings to good use, Netflix is twisting my arm.
For your own good, stop Netflix’s Heart of Stone before minute 50
Because what happens after minute 49:30 robs me of all interest in Heart of Stone in one fell swoop. Not to spoil it, just this: for a twist and a brief moment of shock, the Netflix film says goodbye to the team it convincingly built up in the first half. It rips its own heart out.
With the narrative turned around in this way, Heart of Stone degenerates into a completely interchangeable agent film in no time. We travel around the world fighting a global threat. But without a team. Without putting our hearts into it for any length of time. Even explosive zeppelins in front of a desert panorama or Matthias Schweighöfer as a German nerd export can’t turn the wheel.
Gal Gadot is without question an action star after her DC appearances as Wonder Woman and in Fast & Furious and Red Notice. But even talented action heroes need a profile. And every character only gets that when she interacts with other three-dimensional characters. Rachel Stone, however, remains isolated and, as a solo fighter, has little choice but to follow the pre-drawn path of a world-saving peel-off image.
The hastily introduced replacement characters of the second half of the film do not measure up to their predecessors. They remain cannon fodder without identification potential. Only at the very end does the Netflix film remember Rachel’s longing for a real, reliable team. Only by then it’s already too late to pull the fallen child out of the well.
