Catch the Fair One, 2021.
Directed by Josef Kubota Wladyka.
Starring Kali Reis, Daniel Henshall, Tiffany Chu, Shelito Vincent, Michael Drayer, Lisa Emery, Kimberley Guerrero, and Kevin Dunn.
SYNOPSIS:
A former champion boxer embarks on the fight of her life when she goes in search of her missing sister.
Packing a real emotional punch, Catch the Fair One shines an intense spotlight on the shadowy world of human trafficking.
Casting real-life boxing champion Kale Reis in the lead offers a genuine flair and authenticity to the picture. Reis also co-wrote the story with director Josef Kubota Wladyka. Reis is an outspoken supporter of the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Woman and Girls movement, and has experience in raising the issue across the US.
Reis stars as Kaylee, a mixed-race Cape Verdean and Indigenous ex-boxing champ. She is introduced to the audience as confused and depressed since her younger daughter Weeta (Mainaku Borrero) went missing two years previously.
The film shows the old splendor of Kaylee’s (nickname KO, same as Reis) championship glory in flashback and contrasts it with her life since her sister’s disappearance. She lives in a women’s shelter and works in a diner. She continues to train with her coach Brick (Shelito Vincent), and the two of them learn from a PI that Weeta might have been seen. Kaylee goes undercover into the sex trafficking ring to uncover the truth.
Catch the Fair One has a dreamy quality about it which goes someway to capturing the nightmarish situation of a true social plight. Reis brings out all the anguish of the individual who has lost a family member to something as insidious as kidnapping. The punches she those at those responsible certainly are not pulled.
The plot itself is pretty spare and linear. It’s basically a revenge thriller with added social commentary mixed in, which serves its main point extremely well.
A key line in the film is delivered by one of the traffickers who tells Kaylee, “No one will find her, because no one cares.” The reality is that thousands of indigenous and non-Indigenous girls and women go missing every year.
The film runs with this bleak truth in unflinching style, and hits a knock out punch of its own with the realisation that there won’t be any easy way out.
Reis is incendiary in Kayley’s focused rage against those responsible for her sister’s disappearance, punching her way from lower ranking cronies all the way up to the higher ranks. The film is in full flow when watching her deal out the beatings.
But she is also excellent in displaying the grief and guilt she feels about here sister in shows of vulnerability. This vulnerability is also shown in an early scene with her mother, who chairs a support group for sufferers of trauma. Their relationship is not the best, and this is another bruise that Kayley suffers.
The film, executive produced by Darren Aronofsky, suffers a little when exploring the characters of the villains, who never get much more than one-dimensional. The miscreants behind the crimes do not receive much of a sophisticated look, with the film simply pointing out there are many of them and they will carry out the most heinous acts and abuse in a calm and calculated manner. This too, reflects the nightmarish quality of a hero taking on insurmountable odds. The film seems to be asking how can you take down a whole system, a whole network bolstered by centuries of oppression?
Catch the Fair One then, is all-about Kaylee and her battles; physical, psychological and emotional. Reis is excellent as the grieving sister driven to revenge, and the overriding horror of what some people do for money will linger on well after the credits.
Catch the Fair One is is US Theaters and On Demand Feb 11th.
Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ ★ ★ / Movie: ★ ★ ★ ★
Robert W Monk is a freelance journalist and film writer.
