Canary Black

For the comic book superhero, see Black Canary.

Canary Black
Release poster
Directed by	Pierre Morel
Written by	Matthew Kennedy
Produced by	Sébastien Raybaud John Zois Carsten Lorenz Renee Tab Christopher Tuffin Jeff Elliott Marina Grasic
Starring	Kate Beckinsale Rupert Friend Ray Stevenson Saffron Burrows
Cinematography	Thierry Arbogast
Edited by	Tania Goding
Music by	Jessica Rose Weiss
Production companies	Anton Sentient Entertainment Brickell & Broadbridge International Oakhurst Entertainment
Distributed by	Amazon MGM Studios
Release date	October 24, 2024 (2024-10-24)
Running time	101 minutes
Country	United Kingdom
Language	English

Canary Black is a 2024 British action-thriller film directed by Pierre Morel and written by Matthew Kennedy. The film stars Kate Beckinsale as a CIA agent who is blackmailed into undertaking missions in exchange for her kidnapped husband's life. It was released on October 24, 2024 by Amazon MGM Studios to generally negative reviews.

Plot

Avery Graves is a CIA agent who works under her boss Jarvis Hedlund and lives with her husband David. In one mission, she steals a drive and kills Japanese arms supplier Kenji in Tokyo, who is using a business facade to ship arms to terrorists. Avery had been assigned to investigate the mysterious assassin known as Kali, who carried out the killings of arms dealers and drug runners. She comes home to find her husband missing. She receives a call from Croatian cyberterrorist Breznov, who blackmails her into giving a file called "Canary Black" – which is hidden in Laszlo Stoica's fake tooth, who is currently detained at the CIA Black Site for espionage – in exchange for her husband's life. There, Agent Maxfield tells Avery about the detainee and links it to Kali. Avery confronts Stoica and pulls out his fake tooth, only to find that there is no file. She escapes, and is now on the wanted list.

Deputy Director Nathan Evans scolds Jarvis for his handling of Avery's actions. She meets with Jarvis in his car who claims that Canary Black is a top secret master list of blackmail material for all government personnel. However, Jarvis had trapped her and Avery is captured by the CIA. Their convoy is then ambushed by masked men who attach explosive devices to two of the vehicles, but Avery escapes after the car she is being transported in crashes and overturns. A masked man follows Avery into an alley where she ambushes and stabs him. She removes his mask and he is revealed to be her neighbor Niklaus, whose real name is Rurik van Klaus, an Austrian private contractor. She attempts to interrogates him as to the whereaboouts of her husband but he dies.

Evans flies in in order to deal with the situation personally and meets Breznov in his official fake capacity as the head of security services. Avery ties up Evans in his hotel room and tortures him in order to receive the password of his agency mainframe account, but finds it blocked, so she enlists her hacker friend Sorina to gain access to a CIA server inside a defence contractor company building with the aid of Sorina's human-transport-capable quadricopter drone which drops her on the roof of the building. There, Avery successfully copies the Canary Black file. After a close escape from the building and drone crash, she brings it back to Sorina who analyses it and explains that Canary Black is not a blackmail list, but a virus created by a virus that will cause all computer systems to crash, end internet usage, and cause stock markets to crash globally on a country-by-country basis. Avery takes Sorina's phone and texts Jarvis telling him to follow the location of the phone. She dives in a car previously hijacked by her, to an agreed payphone in an attempt to answer Breznov's call and confirm that she obtained the file prior to a midnight ultimatum, but one of his henchmen, posing as a homeless street sleeper, tases and injects her. She is then brought to Breznov's cyber HQ in an abandoned Cold War-era subterranean complex and chained up.

Breznov broadcasts a video to the Global Unification Summit about his access to Canary Black. He requests a ransom of 1% of GDP of every country, roughly a trillion dollars. As an example, he targets Singapore, cutting off all power. Jarvis tracks Sorina's phone carried by Avery, locates the hideout and kills the two entrance guards, but is captured by Breznov who kills him. As Avery is hanging on chains, her husband David is shot with a deliberate flesh wound to the abdomen so that he bleeds out slowly. After Breznov leaves the room, Avery attacks Breznov's vengeful female henchman, Rurik's partner, with her legs, David grabs a knife, kills two of Breznov's henchmen and reveals to Avery that he is Kali, that he had been lying to her throughout their marriage and that it had been him who had informed Breznov about the existence of Canary Black.

As the ransom money slowly starts pouring in, David kills the power to stop transmitting the virus. After the struggle, Avery kills Breznov and is able to stop the virus from uploading completely. Avery returns the engagement ring to David, says their marriage is beyond fixing. As the CIA arrives, David jumps into the river and Avery is arrested. While she is in custody, Evans tells Avery that her husband is dead while taunting her. Elizabeth Mills arrives, and offers Avery a job at MC6 in exchange for avoiding jail time - a new organization that takes on critical missions on the highest scale of threat. As Avery is walking outside, she sees her wedding ring on a handrail, indicating that her husband is still alive.

Cast

• Kate Beckinsale as Avery Graves
• Rupert Friend as David Brooks
• Ray Stevenson as Jarvis Hedlund
• Saffron Burrows as Elizabeth Mills
• Ben Miles as DCIA Nathan Evans
• Goran Kostić as Konrad Breznov
• Masayoshi Haneda as Kenji Nakajima
• Michael Brandon as the President of the United States
• Charles Nishikawa as Japanese Prime Minister

Production

Canary Black was first introduced at the 2022 Cannes Film Market as a spy thriller directed by Pierre Morel, written by Matthew Kennedy, and starring Kate Beckinsale. At the American Film Market later that year, the first images of the production were released as Anton put the film up for sale.

Filming began in Croatia in October 2022, and continued through January 2023. Filming took place primarily in Zagreb, where shooting interrupted service for several trams in Zagreb to control the environment of the outdoor action sequences, which included Beckinsale flying over the city from a drone and hanging from rooftops. Filming in Zagreb utilized the Dinamo Zagreb's Stadion Maksimir as a movie set, and the city of Rovinj doubled for Tokyo. The end scene was filmed in Ljubljana, Slovenia at the triple bridge.

Release

Canary Black was released on Prime Video on October 24, 2024.

Reception

On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, 18% of 11 critics' reviews are positive, with an average rating of 4.3/10.

External links

• Canary Black at IMDb