A car with an attractive woman (Jessica Chastain) picks up a respectable French financier at the airport. Ordinary flirting leads to the car stopping on the side of the road, and the man finds himself in the back seat. Confident in his victory, he is about to take action. Soon a gun will be pointed at him, and he can delay a quick death only by honestly answering the question: "What did you do that someone wants you to be killed?"
Ava Faulkner is a professional killer, and she has two vices: a defeated addiction to alcohol and a much more harmful one – a kind of compassion for the victim. Sadness makes her start a conversation with her "target," but no one ever knows why Ava came to take his life.
The patience of the superiors (Colin Farrell) is coming to an end, and no matter how the best assassin in the bureau was protected by her curator (John Malkovich), the hunt for her has already begun. To lay low, she has to return to her roots, her home, after an unpleasant story that happened many years ago. It seems that neither the grumpy mother nor the sister who is about to marry Ava's ex-boyfriend is happy to see her. Therefore, in addition to highly professional soldiers, the past becomes a big threat.
Ava is an action movie that focuses not on the action itself, but the main character. The reason for the drama is not the heavy burden of a professional killer, but a dark past that continues to weigh on regardless of the threat.
However, the film still has some originality in it. The authors tried to step away from the plastic popcorn movie and combine an action thriller with a psychological drama.
This hybrid of genres is neither good nor bad. As a result, by an action thriller's standards, the film is too slow and lacks action scenes and chases. As for the dramatic component, it remains superficial and becomes a soap opera from time to time. As it is an action movie, this is pretty annoying.