Heart of Stone: A Thrilling Experience

‘Heart of Stone’ is the latest from Netflix studios, a high-octane spy thriller starring Gal Gadot and featuring massive explosions, car chases and suspense.

To be perfectly honest I’ve often felt that Netflix gets in their own way sometimes. Sometimes they put out something I absolutely love like, “Stranger Things”, “The Grey Man” or “The Adam Project”. But mostly its just, ‘meh’ type stuff. “Heart of Stone” is part of an attempt from Netflix to prove they can put out quality cinema.

“Heart of Stone” has the longest opening sequence I’ve ever seen. The opening scene shows an agent named Rachel Stone (Gal Gadot) paragliding down to a ski resort to track down a notorious arms dealer. The scene encompasses about seventeen minutes of bullets, and a very suspenseful escape before moving on to a theme song. It Netflix was trying to convince me they were taking this seriously, then missing accomplished.

The plot revolves around Rachel Stone who works undercover as an MI6 agent, when she really reports to a supranational organization called ‘The Charter’. The Charter is run by a handful of mysterious figures only referred to by their position on a deck of cards, (e.g. the king of clubs or queen of hearts). The Charter quietly manipulates world events using the worlds most advanced computer system, ‘The Heart’. The Heart is capable of piercing any world security system, allowing the user access to any bank records, any military database, giving the user the power to control the world. The Heart is also capable of predicting virtually any outcome with a 99.9999% success rate, used by the spy organization to ensure mission success. Then one day, the machine makes a mistake and The Heart falls into the wrong hands, and only Rachel Stone can get it back.

Gal Gadot pretty much carries the entire film, and she does a good job at employing her natural charisma to the character. The action scene are taunt and very suspenseful. Everything from thrilling car chases, from crazy stunts and even a heist attempt aboard a high-tech zeppelin. “Heart of Stone” manages to encompass everything that makes spy thrillers great fun to watch.

“Heart of Stone” isn’t without its own set of flaws. One of the main issues is with the main character. As stated, Gal Gadot does a good job of playing to her strengths, but her character is still a little one-dimensional. Rachel Stone is never given any sort of motivation or goal, you’re expected to watch her because she dodges a hail of bullets and jumps out of buildings.

Then there’s the issue surrounding The Charter. I would’ve appreciated some extra detail here, maybe some backstory or something. The viewer is never given anything, they are simply there and assumed to be benevolent. No explanation of where they came from, who runs it or why. In a thriller of this caliber I would expect a little more backstory here.

Regardless, the rest of the movie is still great fun to watch. It ably evokes the thrill of watching the “James Bond” films, speaking as a Bond superfan, this is a compliment. Despite its lack of character depth, that doesn’t mean “Heart of Stone” is mindless. Several scenes showcase the dangers of using AI, showing how a mad individual could commit acts of terror without ever leaving their basement. Not in the same apocalyptic way as “Terminator” but still there. Subtle themes of government corruption and loss of privacy are thrown in.

Overall I would say “Heart of Stone” succeeds at being a nitrous infused spy thriller. There wasn’t any moment in the film where I ever felt bored, this has the look and feel of a major blockbuster. I think Netflix did a very good job, though having seen “The Grey Man” and both “Extraction” movies I know they can do more. If there is a sequel, I would expect more character depth. “Heart of Stone” proves that Netflix can absolutely hang with box office movies. Streaming is not what it used to be, now services like Max, Disney+ and Netflix are stepping up their game. The only question that remains is that if they keep this up then what place will theaters have in the future?