History Film / AtomicBlonde

* StuffedInTheFridge: The murder of [[spoiler:Delphine by Percival]] is the final nail in the coffin that makes Lorraine decide to kill him.
-->'''Lorraine:''' You didn't have to kill her.

* CombatBreakdown: As the absurdly-long hotel fight progresses, all the combatants have a hard time staying conscious, much less in any position to fight.

* MoreDeadlyThanTheMale: [[DeconstructedTrope Deconstructed.]] Lorraine is [[ActionGirl one truly badass lady]] who doesn't lose a single fight, all of which are against men, but that doesn't mean it's ''[[CurbStompBattle easy]]'' for her. Lorraine is hardly waifish, but most of her opponents are taller and stronger than she is and any time one of them actually gets their hands on her [[RealityEnsues she tends to get thrown around like a rag doll.]] She wins anyway because she's willing to fight ''[[CombatPragmatist extremely]]'' dirty and can make [[ImprovisedWeapon literally anything into a weapon.]]

* RealityEnsues:
** The movie is told in flashback of Lorraine in several brutal fights. Thus, the first scene has her in a tub showing a body marked with multiple bruises and cuts, a black eye and several fingers cracked and swollen at the knuckles.
** By the end of the incredible, brutal stairway/room battle, a bloodied Lorraine can barely ''stand'', let alone fight.
** Nobody [[InstantDeathBullet dies]] [[OneHitKill immediately]] unless they get ''shot in the head'', and when somebody gets knocked down in a fight, they don't stay down after one punch, they [[{{Determinator}} keep getting back up]] until they are too exhausted or badly wounded to stand and fight.
*** Not only this, there is no such thing as a bullet leaving OnlyAFleshWound. One agent gets shot in the gut near the beginning of stairway fight and keeps fighting. A few minutes and a few punches to the wound later, he passes out because of that injury, likely to die from either blood loss or shock.
** The whole "[[WaifFu slightly built woman overpowers huge muscular guys]]" cliche is basically obliterated. Lorraine is no pixie, but she's quite a bit shorter and certainly not as strong or muscular as most of the burly gorillas the KGB throws at her, so she has to compensate for the disadvantage she has in terms of physical strength by using ambush tactics and hitting them with [[ImprovisedWeapon literally everything]] [[CombatPragmatist she can get her hands on]], over and over [[NoHoldsBarredBeatdown and over again.]]

* WaifFu: Averted. Lorraine is a badass and certainly well-muscled but she is still physically weaker than most of her opponents, so she compensates by using the environment, throwing, and generally hitting harder and more than they do. Whenever they actually get their hands on her, the burly henchmen [[RealityEnsues throw her around like a ragdoll]], it's a combination of her ability to turn [[CombatPragmatist literally every advantage]] and weapon against them and her [[{{Determinator}} extreme resilience]] that saves her.

* FamousLastWords: "I FUCKING LOVE BERLIN!" [[spoiler:(Percival, before Lorraine shoots him dead)]]

* DumbBlonde: Inverted, as Lorraine is very intelligent and a skilled agent.

There is talk about a sequel, to be potentially produced by Creator/{{Netflix}}.

* DarkReprise: A very sorrowful cover of "99 Luftballoons" (an otherwise very upbeat 80s pop song) by Kaleida plays when [[spoiler:Lorraine discovers Delphine's body]].

* ActionGirl: Lorraine. There's a reason this movie has been referred to as "the female ''Film/JohnWick''". To put it simply, she kicks a ''lot'' of ass.

* FauxActionGirl: Delphine is considered this in-universe; the other handlers even mention that she's considered a liability. [[spoiler:It's eventually proven when she's taken down by Percival, although [[CurbStompCushion she still gets a hit in that leaves him reeling and could have won if she was just a bit faster.]]]] Possibly [[JustifiedTrope justified]] by Delphine still being quite new to the spy game; she mentions to Lorraine that her posting to Berlin was her first, and she's only been there for a year - it's quite possible that she hasn't been given proper instruction in hand to hand combat, at least the kind that works best in a real fight.

* {{MacGuffin}}: The List; a microfilm tape contained within a spy watch that has the names of every KGB operative.

** Percival wears a Stasi longcoat for a while that he stole after beating one up during an escape.

* DressingAsTheEnemy: A regular habit of Percival. He steals a Stasi officer's coat and hat in the beginning, and keeps the coat. He gets a full Stasi uniform later on.

* StockScream: The Stasi mook Lorraine straps a hose to in order to escape utters the Wilhelm Scream when she swings out of the apartment with it.

** The mustached KGB agent during the hallway fight. He manages to keep going for an incredibly long amount of time given Lorraine gut-shot him at the start of it, and only goes down when the blood loss finally gets to him.

* OohMeAccentsSlipping: With [[TropesAreTools actual plot purpose!]] [[spoiler:Lorraine's dodgy English accent at first seems like Charlize Theron having trouble doing the accent, but later it turns out that she's a CIA triple-agent, and so she wasn't even English to begin with!]]

* DistaffCounterpart: Lorraine has something of a rival in the unnamed KGB agent with her same style of indestructability, bleach blonde hair, and monochromatic fashion that she keeps running into.

** [[spoiler:Several times, the KGB agents Lorraine fights express confusion at her actions. This turns out to be because they think she's one of them and don't understand why she's fighting.]] As well as her preferred drink being Stoli vodka.

* {{MacGuffin}}: The List; a microfilm tape contained within a spy watch that has the names of every [=MI6=] operative.

* UnreliableVoiceover: Lorraine is telling the story to her superiors at MI6, and we see the events in flashback. As her story progresses, the flashbacks begin to diverge more and more from what we see. [[spoiler:It starts with her omitting the intimate details of her relationship with Delphine, and culminates when she claims that Percival was Satchel while the flashbacks show her doctoring the evidence to frame him]].

* UnreliableNarrator: Par for the course in a Stale Beer SpyFiction. Neither we nor the characters know who to trust. Who is Satchel? Who betrayed Gascoigne and Spyglass? How much of what Satchel says is true? Any? None?

* BadassLongcoat: Lorraine is practically never seen without one. {{Justified|Trope}} due to the film's chilly Berlin in November setting. [[spoiler:This actually becomes something of a PlotDeviceAllAlong when it turns out Percival slipped a bug into one of Lorraine's most used coats to spy on her.]]

* BathtubScene: There are a few scenes of Lorraine bathing in ice. However, it's ''not'' played for {{Fanservice}}; rather, it's done to help treat and show off the bruises and injuries she's collected along the course of the movie.

* BrickJoke: In the beginning when Lorraine is at the debriefing, she mutters "cocksucker" when Kurzfeld enters the room. [[spoiler:At the very end when she joins him on the plane after it's revealed she was CIA all along, Kurzfeld goes "Cocksucker? Really?" Lorraine smirks and says it was at least convincing.]]

* {{Determinator}}: The mustached KGB agent during the hallway fight. He manages to keep going for an incredibly long amount of time given Lorraine gut-shot him at the start of it, and only goes down when the blood loss finally gets to him.

* EvenEvilHasStandards: [[spoiler:Percival is a rogue operative who has [[GoingNative gone native]], but he's still loyal enough to the United Kingdom to be disgusted by Lorraine once he learns she's Satchel, and plots to get rid of her. He also shoots Spyglass out of concern of what she'd do with him.]]

* KickingAssInAllHerFinery: Lorraine sports some top notch 80's fashion throughout the film and most of her fight scenes occur while she's in full getup.

* KnowledgeBroker: When he's first introduced on-screen, we find Percival has gotten comfy in East Berlin trading Western goods (including Jack Daniels) to locals in exchange for information.

* QueerColors: * Prior to the main storyline, Cold War-era spy Lorraine Broughton had a sexual relationship with fellow agent James Gascoine. Her scenes with French agent Delphine Lasalle in an East Berlin restaurant have heavily saturated pink, purple, and blue lighting, and they have a whirlwind affair.

* ShoutOut: While in East Berlin, Lorraine cuts into a screening of ''Film/{{Stalker}}'' to evade some KGB goons, and even has a fight scene behind the cinema screen.

* SoundtrackDissonance: Something of a RunningGag in the movie is that the soundtrack kicks into overdrive when many of the movie's really violent scenes happen.

* WeaponOfChoice: As she's operating in East Berlin, for practical purposes (ammo availability and deniability), Lorraine is primarily armed with a suppressed Makarov PM which she puts to outstanding use during the stairwell gunfight and [[spoiler: murdering the KGB officer in Paris]]. The gun, having poached multiple design elements from the Walther PPK and PP pistols used by James Bond also acts as a subtle [[spoiler: bit of ForeShadowing and a symbolic subverted ShoutOut to James Bond , as a hint that Loraine is not actually British or loyal to [=MI6=]]].

* RevolversAreForAmateurs: The only character to wield one is the inexperienced Delphine, although it's a .357 magnum, so it's plenty powerful.

* BadassBisexual: While Lorraine was previously involved with an agent named Gascoine, she also hooks up during the film with Delphine Lasalle, a French female operative played by Sofia Boutella, and kicks tons of ass.

** Lorraine realizes the [=MI6=] agents she's been given a lift by are really KGB agents and then starts fighting them while in a moving car and eventually crashing, all while "Major Tom" by Peter Schilling is playing.

** Lorraine beats the crap out of an entire squad of West German police officers while the low-tempo love ballad "Father Figure" by Muaic/GeorgeMichael plays as SourceMusic.

Previews: [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nI7HVnZlleo Official Trailer]]

* AdaptationalHeroism: [[spoiler:Lorraine herself. In the original graphic novel, she is the KGB double agent inside MI-6 . In the film, she's a ''triple'' agent, secretly working for the Americans all along. Although, this being the Cold War, [[GreyAndGrayMorality it's hard to call any of the sides "heroic" ...]]]]

* CheckpointCharlie: The film takes place just before the fall of the Berlin Wall, and involves a lot of maneuvering in between West and East Germany.