History Film / AtomicBlonde

--->'''Lorraine:''' If i knew Percival was going to call the police i would have worn a different outfit.

** BlackAndGrayMorality: There may be no heroes, but there is a villain. Bremovych is established as a brutal tyrant in his first few minutes of screentime when he beats a partygoer to death with his own skateboard for partying in a manner that wasn't approved by the regime, and the fact that his regime approves such behavior explains why so many people are trying to escape to the morally-gray regimes represented by the other characters.

** The song Bremovych has play at the hotel in Paris, Music/VladimirVysotsky's "Fastidious Horses", somewhat. Bremovych is a KGB hardliner who's earlier shown killing an East Berlin punk (a CulturalRebel to communism back then). Vysotsky himself was considered a cultural rebel to the Soviet Union's elites, who despised him, and he was an icon to the common folk. Unless Bremovych really likes his music regardless.

The story is set in early November 1989 in UsefulNotes/{{Berlin}}, on the eve of the collapse of both the [[UsefulNotes/BerlinWall Wall]] and the UsefulNotes/IronCurtain towards the end of the UsefulNotes/ColdWar. Top [=MI6=] agent Lorraine Broughton (Theron) is dispatched to the city to take down an espionage ring that has just killed an undercover agent, whom she had a romantic relationship with unbeknownst to her superiors. Ordered to cooperate with eccentric Berlin station chief David Percival ([=McAvoy=]), the two form a shaky alliance and violently pursue a dangerous threat to the West's entire intelligence operation.

The story is set in early November 1989 in UsefulNotes/{{Berlin}}, on the eve of the collapse of the [[UsefulNotes/BerlinWall Wall]] towards the end of the UsefulNotes/ColdWar. Top [=MI6=] agent Lorraine Broughton (Theron) is dispatched to the city to take down an espionage ring that has just killed an undercover agent, whom she had a romantic relationship with unbeknownst to her superiors. Ordered to cooperate with eccentric Berlin station chief David Percival ([=McAvoy=]), the two form a shaky alliance and violently pursue a dangerous threat to the West's entire intelligence operation.

** 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.

* VisualPun: Lorraine is stalked through a movie theater screening ''Film/{{Stalker}}''.

** The song Bremovych has play at the hotel in Paris, Vladimir Vysotsky's "Fastidious Horses", somewhat. Bremovych is a KGB hardliner who's earlier shown killing an East Berlin punk (a CulturalRebel to communism back then). Vysotsky himself was considered a cultural rebel to the Soviet Union's elites, who despised him, and he was an icon to the common folk. Unless Bremovych really likes his music regardless.

* 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=]]].
** Loraine later gets her hands on a SIG P226 and proceeds to execute [[spoiler: Percival with it in the climax]].

* {{Auction}}: Once Bakhtin got his hands on the List by the end of the opening scene, he went rogue, planning on selling the list to the highest bidder. Both sides of the wall, not wanting each other to get it, send in agents to retrieve it. In retrospect, Bakhtin may have been kind of an idiot...

* DiegeticSwitch: A lot of the music that plays in the movie is actually a part of the background. We also get a visual version when we get a DutchAngle on Percival's meeting with the Russians, turns out [[spoiler:to have been Delphine's point of view, taking photos of the meeting]].

* DrinkBasedCharacterization: Lorraine drinks Stoli vodka on the rocks like it was water fitting her cold no-fuss demeanor. The more wild Percival swigs Jack Daniels whiskey out of the bottle.

* HiddenWire: Being a spy thriller, the planted bug and worn wire are naturally parts of spy fieldcraft, even if they do look...dated by today's standards. So, they're on Percival and Lorraine, natch. [[spoiler:The former is so good at it he's able to hide one on Lorraine's coat without her notice.]]

** Lorraine makes uses of, among other things, a freezer door, a corkscrew, a fire hose, a turntable, keys, a ladder, an electric stove, ''her heels'' and a toilet tank lid as weapons against various opponents.

* WaifFu: {{Subverted}}. 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 [[WouldHitAGirl 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.

* 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 [[WouldHitAGirl 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.

''Atomic Blonde'' is a 2017 {{action|Genre}}[=/=]{{spy|Fiction}} thriller film starring Creator/CharlizeTheron, Creator/JamesMcAvoy, Creator/SofiaBoutella, Creator/TobyJones, Creator/BillSkarsgard, Creator/EddieMarsan, Creator/JohnGoodman and Creator/TilSchweiger, based on the 2012 graphic novel ''The Coldest City'' by Antony Johnston. It is the first solo directorial effort from David Leitch, one of the co-directors of ''Film/JohnWick''.

** The song Bremovych has play at the hotel in Paris, Vladimir Vysotsky's "Fastidious Horses", somewhat. Bremovych is a KGB hardliner who's earlier shown killing an East Berlin punk (a CulturalRebel to communism back then). Vysotsky himself was considered a cultural rebel to the Soviet Union's elites, who despised him. Unless Bremovych really likes his music regardless.

** Merkel's numerous resources.

* ShownTheirWork: The German language used in this movie is surprisingly spot-on overall in a refreshing aversion of GratuitousGerman. Barring a few minor grammatical slip-ups and Lorraine's atrocious accent, most of the German lines almost sound like they're spoken by natives, although of course without any of the Berliner dialects the actual natives would sport. Bremovytch addressing the East Berlin punks early in the film is arguably the most impressive example by virtue of the sheer length and number of his lines, coupled with his near-total lack of a Russian accent.

** Bremovytch starts playing an uptempo section of "99 Luftballons" over a boombox before brutally interrogating a skater punk by beating him with his own board.

The story is set in early November 1989 in UsefulNotes/{{Berlin}}, on the eve of the collapse of the [[UsefulNotes/BerlinWall Wall]] towards the end of the UsefulNotes/ColdWar. Top [=MI6=] agent Lorraine Broughton (Theron) is dispatched to the city to take down an espionage ring that has just killed an undercover agent, whom she had a romantic relationship with unbeknownst to her superiors. Ordered to cooperate with Berlin station chief David Percival ([=McAvoy=]), the two form a shaky alliance and violently pursue a dangerous threat to the West's entire intelligence operation.

* TheDragon: The NighInvulnerable henchman with bleached hair (called "The Soldier" in the credits) is this to Bremovytch, complete with a brutal one-on-one fight with Lorraine [[TheOner all done in one take]].
* DressingAsTheEnemy: A regular habit of Percival. He steals a Volkspolizei officer's coat and hat in the beginning, and keeps the coat. He gets a full Volkspolizei uniform later on.

* GroinAttack: During the apartment fight against East German cops, Lorraine uses a fire hope like a whip. At one point, while she's snared the neck of one cop with the hose, she also hits him in the "family jewels" with it.

* 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.

** Gascoine is killed while the original Music/NewOrder version of "Blue Monday" blares.

** Similarly, [[spoiler:he might be rogue, but Percival was a good friend of James Gascoine. He kills Bakhtin as soon as he can to avenge his friend.]]

* ExpositoryHairstyleChange: David Percival is introduced (to Lorraine, not the audience) with a boyish, medium-length haircut in his [=MI6=] file photo. When she meets him in Berlin, he's got a buzzcut, beard, and has [[GoingNative gone native]].

* CombatBreakdown: As the absurdly-long hotel fight progresses, all the combatants have a hard time staying conscious, much less in any position to fight. At one point Lorraine and a KGB agent are just sagging against walls opposite each other, gasping for breath and half-heartedly swiping at the air between them
* CombatStilettos: Lorraine is practically never seen out of them, and does all of her fighting in them. At one point she takes her heel off to use the stiletto as an ImprovisedWeapon against a KGB agent in a more [[CombatPragmatist pragmatic]] version of this trope.
* CombatPragmatist:
** All of the spies. The movie starts with a KGB agent running over Gascoigne with a car, and it goes up from there.
** Somewhat deconstructed with Percival: while he's great at ambushes, he's not much in a straight fight, unlike Lorraine who can brawl with the best of them in ''addition'' to being underhanded. Best seen when he kills [[spoiler:Delphine]] -- he has the advantage at first, but as soon as she gets a hit in he nearly collapses in pain and is only able to succeed because she let her guard down again. Similarly, he never fights [[spoiler:Lorraine]] in person because he knows he'll lose.

* CrouchingMoronHiddenBadass: Percival who is constantly sliding between gross incompetence and savant-like brilliance in the spy craft.

* DeadpanSnarker: When Lorraine's not being deadly serious, she's this.

* DieLaughing: Gascoine is immensely amused by the fact his death is at the hands of the runt of the KGB litter.
* DistaffCounterpart: Lorraine has something of a rival in the unnamed KGB agent (Credited as "Soldier") with the same style of indestructability, bleach blonde hair, and monochromatic fashion that she keeps running into.

* ActionGirl: Lorraine. To put it simply, she kicks a ''lot'' of ass.

* AdaptationalSexuality: The protagonist's heterosexual affair with a male French agent in the graphic novel is turned into a same-sex romance in the film.

* AntiHero: Lorraine. She's a morally ambiguous, ruthless assassin [[spoiler:and is revealed to be a ''triple'' agent for the Americans playing the Russians and the British against each other]], but she takes protecting people on her missions seriously and the only people she kills onscreen are cold-blooded murderers themselves, making her ALighterShadeOfBlack next to the actual villains.

* 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.]]
** Percival wears a Volkspolizei (People's police) longcoat for a while that he stole after beating one up during an escape.
* TheBait: [[spoiler:Lorraine eventually pieces together that she was sent to Berlin by [=MI6=] in part to determine Percival's loyalty.]]

* BeautyIsNeverTarnished:
** Averted in Lorraine's case. She takes some severe hits to the face during the stairwell fight and spends a significant amount of time with her entire face bruised and bloodied and one hell of a black eye. [[spoiler: In the movie's epilogue in Paris, Lorraine wears a sleeveless jumpsuit; you don't have to look very closely to see a trail of still-healing bruises down her upper arm.]]
** Played extremely straight with [[spoiler:Delphine, whose lingerie-clad corpse doesn't have so much as a cut on her throat from where she was garrotted]].

''Atomic Blonde'' is a 2017 action/spy thriller film starring Creator/CharlizeTheron, Creator/JamesMcAvoy, Creator/SofiaBoutella, Creator/TobyJones, Creator/BillSkarsgard, Creator/EddieMarsan, Creator/JohnGoodman and Creator/TilSchweiger, based on the 2012 graphic novel ''The Coldest City'' by Antony Johnston. It is the first solo directorial effort from David Leitch, one of the co-directors of ''Film/JohnWick''.

* GoingNative: The heads of [=MI6=] in the beginning describe Percival as a deep cover agent who has done this. In his own words, he "[[PrecisionFStrike fucking]] loves Berlin."

* GunFu: Some of the Film/JohnWick heritage shines through when Lorraine gets her hands on a handgun.

** Lorraine is seen naked several times, and this trope is taken UpToEleven when [[spoiler:Lorraine and Delphine have sex in a hotel.]]

* TheOner: The stairwell fight scene, which also spills into several abandoned apartments and eventually the streets of Berlin in a car chase, is filmed to look like a '''[[UpToEleven 7+ minute long]]''' unbroken long take, and is billed by many reviewers and the marketing itself as the film's SignatureScene.

** 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=]]].

** 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.]]