Pros: Casting Scott Adkins as the lead; action scenes; filming in Ukraine Cons: set of cliches and naivety of some scenes “Legacy of Lies” / Legacy of Lies
Genre Action, Thriller
Directed by Adrien Bol
Starring: Scott Adkins (Martin), Yulia Sobol (Sasha), Honor Neafsey (Lisa), Martin McDougall (Trevor), Anna Butkevich (Tatyana), etc.
Studios 13 Films, Eager Films BV, Film Polska Production
Year of release 2020
IMDb website
If the film “Legacy of Lies” appeared in cinemas at another time, it would probably have been lost among other more successful films. But now, during a period of calm, you can find something interesting and even funny in it. Where else can you see a retired English spy running past the minibuses to the Central Station? He arranges a shootout on the Rybalsky Bridge and dashingly escapes from pursuit on Demeevskaya.
By the way, Ukraine provided not only the locations for filming, but also part of the film’s budget. “Legacy of Lies” was one of the winners of the tenth competitive selection of Goskino – the film received state financial support, which repaid 20% (17 million 463 thousand hryvnia) of the total production cost.
There are also Ukrainian actors in the cast, but the main role was offered to the Englishman Scott Adkins. He is a martial artist and stuntman who was involved in the filming of The Bourne Ultimatum and The Brothers Grimsby. Thanks to his participation in action scenes, Adkins ended up in the Marvel Comics film adaptation, where his character opposed Doctor Strange, being a henchman of the antagonist Kaecilius (played by Mads Mikkelsen). His most famous role is, perhaps, the Undisputed series, where he played the Russian champion in illegal fights, Yuri Boyka – these films vividly resemble the classics of video stores of the 90s in the spirit of “Bloody Sport”, etc.
In Legacy of Lies, Scott Adkins plays a former British secret intelligence officer named Martin. The hero raises his daughter alone, makes money from fighting without rules and moves from place to place, hiding from his past. His old life catches up with him one day – in London, a Ukrainian journalist Sasha (actress Yulia Sobol) contacts Martin, telling him about the files that the Russians are hunting for. Her story involves a nerve agent that can be a powerful weapon in the wrong hands. This reminds Martin of the tragedy that happened in Kyiv 12 years ago. The hero does not want to get involved in this matter again, but people appear on the horizon who blackmail and force the former spy to go to the capital of Ukraine.
The director and screenwriter of “Legacy of Lies” was the Dutchman Adrien Bol, who mixed all possible and impossible clichés together. Here you have flashbacks from the past that bother the central character, and a villainess in stiletto heels who carries out torture, and a spy room with access to all the necessary data. What can we say – some of the scenes are done so naively that it makes you smile.
But for the Ukrainian viewer, what is happening in the film will be quite an exciting spectacle. Almost all the action scenes were filmed in Ukraine, so even in the British part of the story you can easily recognize the architecture that is familiar to us (this time it turned out much better than in the film Cold Blood Legacy, where the Carpathians turned into Washington State not very believably). Besides, looking at the screen, I want to admit that Kyiv is truly a great place for filming. Even with such popular and already a little hackneyed locations as a car park with abandoned buses or the Vernadsky library.
Among other advantages of the film is the professional work of Scott Adkins, who personally performed all the stunts with chases and fights, which do a good job of hiding the absurdities of the film. There is also a mention in the script of the substance “novichok”, which was secretly used in the UK. It is not very difficult to guess which country would find such a topic unacceptable. Others may well enjoy this plot – the producers of “Legacy of Lies” reported that the rights to the tape have already been bought by Amazon Prime and Apple Plus.
Conclusion:
an action movie in which it’s quite fun to recognize familiar Kyiv locations and notice the absurdities of the script. Overall, it’s a perfectly acceptable option for going to the cinema after a long break.
