# Canary Black

Canary Black is a 2024 British action-thriller film directed by Pierre Morel and written by Matthew Kennedy. The film stars Kate Beckinsale as a CIA agent on the run. It was released on October 24, 2024 by Amazon MGM Studios to generally negative reviews.

## Plot

Avery Graves is a CIA agent who steals a drive from a building in Tokyo. Then she comes home to celebrate her third anniversary with her husband David. Later she meets Jarvis, her boss at the CIA. They speak of Kenji, who was using a business facade to ship arms to terrorists.
She comes home to find it trashed and her husband missing. A phone on the table says to get the Canary Black file by midnight and mentions a detainee number, or her husband dies. She asks for proof of life and is able to speak with her husband.
A hacker friend helps Avery locate the last call to the phone, and gives her the address. She then goes to work and searches for the detainee number - Laszlo Stoica. She goes to the address, and finds her husband's wedding ring and a phone on a table. She receives a call saying she has stepped on a pressure sensitive bomb. She opens the floor, sees that the device is a Bouncing Betty, effortlessly rips the leg off the sturdy table, triggers the bomb by taking the weight off her foot, and as the bomb flies straight up she bats it out the window. The explosion takes out the side of the building and leaves her slightly sooty. She gives a middle finger to the camera that is monitoring her and runs out the building and jumps in her car.
Agent Maxfield tells Avery about the detainee and links it to Kali who got his hands on a top secret file whose scope is deadly. She talks her way in to see the detainee, roughs him up, pulls out his fake tooth, but the secret container in it is empty. She fights her way out of the facility, and is now on the wanted list.
Evans tells Jarvis that Canary Black is said to be a top secret master list of blackmail material for all government personnel. Avery calls Jarvis from his own home and tells him her husband has been kidnapped. Soon thereafter, CIA storms Avery's place.
Avery gets a video call of her husband tied and beaten. It's now 8:00 PM, only 4 hours remaining. She meets with Jarvis in his car, but is suddenly captured by the CIA - Jarvis had trapped her. As the car is driving away with her, another car with masked men shoots at them. Her car is toppled, but she manages to escape. A masked man attacks, but she stabs him with his own knife. It is her neighbor Niklaus, but he dies before she can get anything out of him.
Evans meets with Breznov and they form a partnership. Avery checks into a hotel under an assumed name with guns and arms. She climbs out, and enters Evans's room. She puts a mute mask on Evans and asks him for his account password. But the password doesn't work because the account is frozen and can be accessed only with computers inside PLK Technologies. She calls her hacker friend and asks for a CIA server secure access.
The hacker friend gets a drone and Avery rides it into PLK technologies. Logs into the server with password and copies Canary Black files. She escapes the building on the same drone. They finally see what is on Canary Black - it's not a blackmail list, but a virus that causes computer systems to crash - a doomsday virus for each country. Avery texts Jarvis to track her phone and goes to answer the phone about her kidnapped husband, but a man tasers and kidnaps her.
Breznov transmits a video to the Global Unification Summit about his access to Canary Black, the geo-targeted computer virus, which can end internet usage and create a stock market crash. He requests a ransom of 1% of GDP of every country, roughly a trillion dollars. As an example, he targets Singapore, cutting off all power.
Jarvis tracks the phone and locates the hideout, but is captured by Breznov who kills him. His watch, which contains a tracking device, is used by the CIA to find his body. As Avery is hanging on chains, her husband David is shot. But surprisingly, David grabs a knife and kills everyone around him. It turns out that David told Breznov about Canary Black. David reveals that he is Kali.
Ransom money slowly starts pouring in. But David kills the power to transmit the virus. Avery kills Breznov and is able to stop the virus from uploading completely.
Avery returns the ring to David, says their marriage is beyond fixing. CIA arrives - David escapes, but Avery is arrested. While she is in custody, Elizabeth Mills arrives, and offers Avery a job at MC6 instead of prison - a new organization that takes on critical missions on the highest scale of threat.
As Avery is walking outside, she sees her wedding ring on a handrail, indicating that her husband is still alive.

## Cast

* Kate Beckinsale as Avery Graves
* Rupert Friend as David Brooks
* Ray Stevenson as Jarvis Hedlund
* Saffron Burrows as Elizabeth Mills
* Ben Miles as DCIA Nathan Evans
* Goran Kostić as Konrad Breznov
* Masayoshi Haneda as Kenji Nakajima
* Michael Brandon the President of the United States
* Charles Nishikawa as Japanese Prime Minister

## Production

Canary Black was first introduced at the 2022 Cannes Film Market as a spy thriller directed by Pierre Morel, written by Matthew Kennedy, and starring Kate Beckinsale. At the American Film Market later that year, the first images of the production were released as Anton put the film up for sale.
Filming began in Croatia in October 2022, and continued through January 2023. Filming took place primarily in Zagreb, where shooting interrupted service for several trams in Zagreb to control the environment of the outdoor action sequences, which included Beckinsale flying over the city from a drone and hanging from rooftops. Filming in Zagreb utilized the Dinamo Zagreb's Stadion Maksimir as a movie set, and the city of Rovinj doubled for Tokyo. The end scene was filmed in Ljubljana, Slovenia at the triple bridge.

## Release

Canary Black was released on Prime Video on October 24, 2024.

## Reception

On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, 18% of 11 critics' reviews are positive, with an average rating of 4.3/10.