Tornado

Tornado (Kôki) seeks vengeance in Tornado (Distributed by IFC Films)

Tornado is a simple story of honor, greed and revenge. On the British Isles in 1790, a group of dangerous men, looking for their stolen gold, chase a young woman through the countryside, hoping she will lead them to it. As it unfolds, some information about how they all got into this situation is revealed, but it is mainly a lean chase drama, with sudden bursts of violence. Even at a mere 86 minutes (without the end credits), it still feels a bit padded. There are a couple too many scenes of hiding and seeking and it definitely takes too long before the title character turns the tables on her pursuers.

This movie is not tense or action-packed. It is quiet, with an emphasis on the basic personal feelings driving the characters (mostly fear and greed). It is an interesting little story, with well-used scenery and effective physical performances. I may forget it in a few days, yet I am not unhappy that I saw it.

Tornado works in a traveling circus with her father, a puppeteer/samurai. When some criminals pass through, and their ill-gotten goods go missing, Tornado must run to survive.

Director John Maclean starts things in the middle of the action, with the gang chasing the young woman onto an estate, showcasing their ruthlessness and her resourcefulness. Eventually, he flashes back to show us the beginning of the tale and how she ended up on the run. There is no urgency here, which is a unique approach to the material. He does not try to work the audience up into fearing for Tornado’s safety. There is always the overwhelming impression that, not only is she going to come out of this alive, but also that she will be personally responsible for all of their deaths. That inevitability is oddly engaging, though, since it takes so long for Tornado to hit its next gear, it ends up inadvertently sucking some of the drama out of this as well.

Little Sugar (Jack Lowden) tries to get the gold

One thing Maclean does very successfully is establishing the setting. With sparse dialogue (actions certainly speak louder than words here), viewers get a strong sense of the landscape and the kinds of people who inhabit it. These are desperate folks, doing what they can to survive. While Tornado doesn’t seem to care for puppeteering, her father is an honorable man who brings his best to everything he does.

The villain, the single-minded Sugarman, doesn’t have enough depth to rise above selfish evil. However, he does not seem to enjoy killing, no matter how many times he does it during the course of the movie. Though we learn neither how he obtained the gold nor his reasons for obsessing over it, he is not crazy. He is smart, thorough, measured and relentless. Maclean’s screenplay is not filled with substance, but it gets its points across.

Tornado is well-made, with several good scenes and none that are actively bad. The performances are solid, considering how little the characters verbalize, and it looks good. Unfortunately, it just isn’t consistently compelling. For a chase story, it isn’t suspenseful. For a revenge story, it isn’t thrilling. It is a decent drama, with not enough intriguing elements to move beyond that level.

3 out of 5

Cast:

Kôki as Tornado

Tim Roth as Sugarman

Jack Lowden as Little Sugar

Takehiro Hira as Fujin

Nathan Malone as The Boy

Written/Directed by John Maclean