Colombiana

Colombiana is a 2011 action movie starring Zoe Saldana, written and produced by Luc Besson. The film follows Cataleya Restrepo, daughter of a member of a Colombian cartel. Her parents are killed when she was 9, forcing her to flee to Chicago to live with her uncle. Using her uncle's tutelage and own intelligence, Cataleya becomes a beautiful and deadly assassin driven by vengeance for her parents' deaths.


 * Arc Words: "Never forget...Never forget where you came from".
 * Air Vent Passageway: Cateleya sneaks through the ventilation system of the jail to get to her target. Somewhat subverted, as the vents are claustrophobically small and she has to improvise a way past a fan. Later, she uses the vents in her building to escape the FBI raid on her house.
 * Anachronism Stew: SD cards and Xena: Warrior Princess did not exist in 1992. But since it would have been harder to explain to viewers who Chun-Li is, as well as try to find a way to get Cataleya to eat a CD...
 * BFG
 * Black and Gray Morality: While Marco is evil, Cataleya is an assassin.
 * California Doubling: The scene in which the cop car gets crashed into was filmed in Metairie, LA, a suburb of New Orleans. This occurs seconds after the message flashes on the screen, "Los Angeles, present day."
 * Calling Card: Cataleya draws a cataleya orchid on her victims.
 * Chekhov's Gun:
 * CIA Evil, FBI Good: Agent Ross of the FBI continually comes to grips against Agent Williams of the CIA, who is actively stonewalling Ross' investigation to prevent him from discovering Agency's ties to the cartel boss who killed Cataleya's parents.
 * Everything's Even Worse with Sharks:
 * Fake American: Brit Lennie James plays an American FBI agent. His American accent is flawless but at one point, while searching cars, he refers to the trunk as a 'boot'.
 * Fake Nationality: Half Puerto-Rican/half Dominican Zoe Saldana and Maori Cliff Curtis play Colombians.
 * Flower Motif: The "Cataleya" orchid. (also "Colombiana" is a real kind of orchid)
 * Girls with Guns
 * Gory Discretion Shot: Cutting to the outside of the van,
 * Hollywood Silencer
 * Improvised Weapon: The climax manages to do this with a towel. And it's awesome.
 * Insecurity Camera: Played straight in her first hit, as she's trying to frame a guard. Subverted later, since when she shoots out some cameras to hide her movment, it tells the FBI exactly where she is.
 * It Works Better with Bullets: The loan shark picks up a pair of Desert Eagles from dead guards and tries to use them on Cateleya. Turns out she emptied them beforehand. Justified, since the target wasn't a gun person and the handgun's massive weight would help disguise the lack of bullets.
 * Laser Sight: The red dot helps to let the target know she's not bluffing.
 * Le Parkour: By a 9 year old schoolgirl, no less. As well as one of the Mooks chasing her.
 * Little Miss Badass: And she grew up to be quite the lovely Action Girl, too.
 * Ms. Fanservice: Cataleya. Just count the number of times she's naked, partially naked, wet or wearing skintight clothing.
 * Playing Drunk: Cateleya does this (hilariously!) to get arrested and thrown in jail with one of her assassination targets.
 * Properly Paranoid: Cateleya empties the guns her target might use, searches an FBI agent's house for hidden cameras, and seems to have planed an air-vent escape from her apartment if it's ever raided.
 * Roaring Rampage of Revenge: With a healthy side of More Dakka and a light garnishing of Guns Akimbo. Taken Up to Eleven after her last remaining relatives are killed. She dispenses with her ninja tactics, send an RPG round through the front door and storms the place guns blazing.
 * Small Girl, Big Gun: Especially that giant sniper rifle.
 * Spiritual Sequel: Apparently, the movie began life as a sequel to Leon The Professional and mainly centered around Mathilda, but was changed into something else over the years. The changes came about presumably because Natalie Portman would have cost too much to hire.
 * Unusually Uninteresting Sight: Emilio, in an attempt to scare Cataleya  No one cares that he did this.
 * Waif Fu