Content Warning: The article below makes reference to sexual assault.
The Big Picture
Margot Robbie stars in the 2018 neo-noir thriller,
Terminal,
playing mysterious assassins, Annie and Bonnie.
Robbie appears alongside Simon Pegg and Mike Myers in the ambitious revenge story.
Playing femme fatales, Robbie’s characters are on a warpath, seeking revenge against everyone who has hurt them.
Terminal is a 2018 neo-noir thriller film written and directed by Vaughn Stein. It stars Margot Robbie as the mysterious Annie and Bonnie in a wild and twisty tale about the lives of twin assassins, a fatally ill pedophilic teacher, a custodian, and a waitress, all of whom become part of a murderous plan. Robbie beautifully walks the line between naive innocence and diabolical badass, bolstered by an ensemble of curious characters featuring Mike Myers and Simon Pegg. The dark narrative unfolds within a claustrophobic underground tech-noir world of dark and lush visuals, enrobing the performances in an ever-darkening shroud of mystery and danger with significant effect. Robbie’s performance is creepy yet strangely alluring, with an accessible and compelling feminity that masks her murderous intent. While the film has received generally negative reviews due to its existential nature and Frankenstein mix of genre tropes, Robbie’s performance stands out in underwhelming feature.
Terminal
A film noir taking place in a train terminal at night. Add two male assassins, a female assassin, a waitress, a teacher, a janitor, and a crime boss. Add revenge. Who says mystery is a lost art?
Actors Margot Robbie, Simon Pegg, Mike Myers, Dexter Fletcher, Max Irons
Release Date May 11, 2018
Director Vaughn Stein
Run Time 95 mins
Studio RLJE Films
What Is ‘Terminal’ About?
Margie Robbie takes on a dual role in this twisted crime thriller as the waitress and dancer, Annie and Bonnie, twin sisters on the warpath. Bonnie and Annie were left orphaned, their mother burned to death in a fire by a gangster named Vince (Dexter Fletcher) at the behest of the criminal mastermind and mysterious train station supervisor, disguised as The Janitor, Clinton “MR.” Franklyn (Meyers). Their mother, a dancer at his club, wound up murdered while trying to flee her bondage, sending her daughters into the system where they were sexually assaulted by their teacher, Bill (Pegg), at the boarding school they attended.
Many years later, the sisters have faded into anonymity, lost among the squalor of the street, lurking in and out of the shadows and neon lights of a trashy, dark and futuristic London. The sisters are a long and distant memory for the baddies of this film and a prime target for the murderous intent of Annie and Bonnie. Pretending to be a single person, the pair, vying for a position among London’s top hitmen, make a bet with Mr. Franklyn that they can kill all his gun thugs if he promises them all his future contracts on the condition that if she fails, she dies. In reality, Annie and Bonnie are weaving a web of deadly intrigue, leaning on the perversion of their enemies and employing their coquettish sexuality, ultimately hunting down and killing every single person who ever did them wrong in an exciting reveal at the end of the movie where the audience learns that Margot Robbie is playing twins.
Margot Robbie Plays a Femme Fatale in ‘Terminal’
Margot Robbie plays a conniving Femme Fatale in Terminal. She is particularly formidable in a scene atop an abandoned air shaft where she tries to convince a target to jump to his death, spotlight a sinister depth that is both utterly disturbing and supremely cool to watch. Robbie and Pegg have an intriguing on-screen dynamic, with her character goosing Bill all night at the diner as he confesses to her that he is dying of cancer. She is calculatingly flirtatious, simultaneously stoking Bill’s ego while taking the piss out of him. She is everything Bill thinks he needs at that moment as he comes to terms with his cancer. He hardly recognizes Annie, feeling a vague familiarity. With his self-absorption and unreliable memory, he misses obvious clues, instead delighting in Annie’s murderous company. She leads him to an air shaft, dancing around an opening, trying to convince Bill that he should jump.
Instead, he gets mad and screams at her, trying to psychologically dress her down and telling her that he’s seen a lot of “naughty” girls like her. It hits him because Annie’s eyes water and her lip quivers a little. Her resolve is shaken slightly; this is the only time she appears vulnerable in the film. Then, the gotcha moment is when Bill realizes she is his student. In a series of flashbacks, the audience sees twin girls sleeping soundly in a bed with a drunk Bill looming over them, and the dots are connected. She plunges a knife into Bill’s neck and she throws him down the elevator shaft, a fitting end for a disgusting creep like Bill and an endearing moment where the audience can feel the righteousness of what she is doing, a moment that garners both sympathy and fear as the levy breaks and people finally start dying. She is a victim no more.
‘Terminal’ Underperformed at the Box Office
Terminal is an excellent film for B-movie fans with its Frankenstein-like composition of genre conventions. Of course, a claustrophobic tunnel-like world is present in this film, in a type of permanent midnight, backlit by neon signs in a tired and worn-out London. While this film may not be of the same ilk as Blade Runner, which shares many stylistic similarities, particularly concerning lighting, it is still a wild and unhinged ride worthy of attention. Terminal is a gangster movie in a lush underground world that almost feels like a sci-fi movie by Guy Ritchie. The characters are morally ambiguous, with little to no goodness in them, but the 2D nature of the characters is what people love about B-Films. One can sit back and enjoy the fun and pithy dialogue and set design in what is a twisty but ultimately, predictable story.
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This film was meant for something other than broader audiences, as reflected in the dismal box office returns. Terminal made a paltry $843,970. For all its twists and turns, the film is not only predictable but full of some forgettable characters, except for Margot Robbie and Simon Pegg. Pegg’s break from type is certainly, and it’s pretty entertaining to see him play a bad guy. The film’s conclusion is anti-climactic. For a keen audience member, all the clues are in the dialogue and visuals and armed with the ability to pause; the ending is in sight from some of its first scenes. While the cast in this film is pretty stacked, the film could not capture the attention of the wider movie-going public and is best enjoyed as a B-film with a deep suspension of one’s disbelief.
Terminal is currently available to stream on Hulu in the U.S.
WATCH ON HULU