Eve Macarro watched her father die in front of her, murdered by a cult of assassins. Those mysterious killers made her an orphan, robbing her of her family.
But it didn’t take long for her to find a new one.
Aided by Winston, the proprietor of a New York City establishment called The Continental, Eve found her way to a new “family”: the Ruska Roma crime syndicate.
The leader of the Ruska Roma, The Director, offers to take Eve in. To mold the young girl into a ballerina-assassin, equal parts graceful and deadly. They know how to make killers. In fact, the most famous hitman in the underworld came from Ruska Roma. They call him the “Baba Yaga.” (Maybe you’ve heard of him.)
Eve gladly accepts. She’ll become an assassin. She’ll serve the Ruska Roma. And she’ll learn all the skills she needs so that one day, she can find the killer cult who took her father from her and exact revenge—even if that means leaving a trail of blood and bodies in her wake.
What did you expect? This is a movie set in the John Wick universe, after all.
Eve becomes a full-fledged assassin, but she seems to retain a sliver of her humanity: Throughout the film, there are instances where she refrains from killing a disadvantaged opponent or seeks a nonlethal option. (Still, these instances are the exception, not the rule.)
A veteran assassin encourages Eve to walk away from a life of violence before it’s too late. Eve’s loving father risks his life to protect his daughter. Another father does the same for his daughter. Someone protects her sister. A few assassins spare the lives of those they have at their mercy.
The villainous group of assassins that killed Eve’s father are referred to as a cult. While that cult’s beliefs are ill-defined, their leader, The Chancellor, speaks of an inevitable, irrepressible fate. “There are no choices,” he says, and later tells a woman that she was “chosen” to be a killer.
When Eve pursues knowledge about the cult that killed her father, Winston warns, “Needing to know is what got us banished from the Garden of Eden.” He asks if she’s prepared to be cast out again as a result of her vengeful pursuit.
The John Wick franchise frequently drapes its murderous underworld in religious imagery symbolism, and Ballerina is no different. In particular, the Ruska Roma syndicate takes on the trappings of Orthodox Christianity, if not the substance. (It seems the Sixth Commandment is a mystery to these trained killers.) Ruska Roma members kneel, heads bowed, during a candlelit initiation ceremony.
Tattoos depict crosses and angels, including a Latin phrase which translates to “Light in Darkness,” most likely a reference to John 1:5. A painting depicts a scene from the deuterocanonical Book of Judith. An old church prominently stands in the middle of a European town. There is a mention of the “kikimora,” a mythological creature of Slavic origin.
A ballerina’s outfit is somewhat revealing. Some women wear short dresses. Clubgoers dance suggestively.
If you’re familiar with the John Wick films, you won’t be surprised to learn that Ballerina faithfully follows in the franchise’s footsteps with a breakneck pace, bloody violence and an absurdly high body count.
Much of the violence comes courtesy of the film series’ trademark running-and-gunning confrontations, but the movie packs in plenty more bloody deaths through a variety of means. People get shot with bullets and crossbow bolts, the latter gruesomely pinning a guard to a wall. Others are stabbed, sliced and skewered by bladed weapons of every sort, often accompanied by a splash of blood. In an extended scene, several mercenaries are messily blown up, one by one, by a seemingly endless supply of hand grenades. Another action sequence involves flamethrowers, which result in a lot of fiery deaths.
Many of the fatalities are preceded by a flurry of bone-crunching punches, kicks and body slams. People crash through windows and walls and tumble down flights of stairs.
Training for the Ruska Roma syndicate involves some vicious sparring and gunplay that, while nonlethal, still looks quite painful. Later, Eve is put to the test against another trained killer: The first one to rebuild their gun and shoot the other wins. We see the bloody aftermath of one of Eve’s early missions.
A life is spared, but the immediate result is more killing. A woman is struck with the butt of a gun and passes out. People are hit with a pipe. A man is branded with a hot iron. Someone’s eye gets gouged. A dead deer is gutted by a huntsman. We see the body of a man who has been crushed by a car. Another person’s hand is severed and carried around in a bloody bag.
A character is given a gun and encouraged to end their own life. Others say that contending against a famous assassin is tantamount to suicide. Someone has a bounty put on their head. We see glimpses of a classroom where children are trained to become killers.
A ballerina’s feet bleed from the effort of training.
The f-word is uttered 12 times. We six uses of the s-word. Jesus’ name is abused once and there are two misuses of God’s name. Other language includes uses of “h—” and “p-ss.” Someone makes a crude reference to male anatomy.
A German word that could be translated as “s—” is heard.
A few characters smoke cigarettes or cigars. A man has a martini close at hand. We see bottled liquor and drinking glasses arranged at a bar.
Someone receives a blood transfusion. Animal heads are seen mounted on walls.
“There are no easy answers for grief.”
So says Winston, when he finds Eve, who’s just become a young orphan, in the wake of her father’s death.
It’s a sage sentiment that rings a bit hollow in this film. Because in the world of John Wick, it seems that there’s only one answer for grief: to go on a bloody and violent rampage with enough casualties to affect the next census.
In Ballerina, it’s the demise of a father that sets off this savage chain reaction, rather than a puppy from a deceased wife. But the result is very much the same.
In Plugged In’s review of John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum, Paul Asay described the film series as “ballets of blood.” This film—which takes place between the events of the third and fourth Wick movies—takes that description seriously, making its heroine a literal ballerina. And like the previous films in this franchise, the performance that Ballerina puts on is stylish, well-orchestrated … and gruesome.
Ballerina views violence as virtue and basks in bloodshed. The harsh language and misappropriated religious imagery don’t help either.
Much like the underworld it portrays, Ballerina wants to be slick and sophisticated. But no amount of sharp suits, solemn codes and golden coins can hide the barbarity underneath.
Bret loves a good story—be it a movie, show, or video game—and enjoys geeking out about things like plot and story structure. He has a blast reading and writing fiction and has penned several short stories and screenplays. He and his wife love to kayak the many beautiful Colorado lakes with their dog.
