The movie Vanquish is a high-powered action thriller that drops the viewers into nightmarish life of danger, redemption, and grim morality. Since the first minutes, the movie throws you into the world of a breath-taking, racing chase, where the miserable history of a mother meets with her survival now. The plot is simple, and yet full of brutal scenes of action and emotion-rich decisions, touching on the theme of sacrifice or justice or the ghosts of sins that haunt you. The atmosphere is very dark, dirty, uncompromising, and reflects the lawlessness and ethical uncertainty that surrounds Victoria during her horrifying adventure.
Raw intensity of the story is added by the performances. Rose brings out multi-layered characters as a victimized Victoria with inner strength who reaches out to others as the characters get tied and freeman, who is an intricately good and bad antagonist Damon due to his own misconstrued justice. Its action is visceral and well-staged and the bikers, guns and savage beat-downs all keep the blood-pumping. The film is organized in a fast pace that keeps a level of suspense through the placements by tight editing and movable camera modes that put the viewer in a mix of every stop. The cinematography and stark light are further gritty in further establishing the dark mood of the film and the inevitable urgency of the events that took place that night was further emphasized in the score.
The sound that resounded was that in listening to a mother struggling against heavy odds to save her child, yet her own murky history threatens to overtake her. Both the hopeful and tragic notes at the end of the film took with them an ambiguous theme of sacrifice and the gray morality. Vanquish is one violent and exciting roller-coaster that makes us feel just how desperate we are to protect what and who we love and believe in long after the credits run out.
