raditionally, women over 50 have been unarmed in the action genre. With the release of The Woman King last month and Halloween Ends due to be released later this month, the situation appears to be faintly improving this year. Directed by Anna Foerster from a screenplay co-written by Maggie Cohn and Jack Stanley, Netflix also brought an eccentric action film featuring Oscar winner Allison Janney, Lou. It is, however, sad to see the Oscar winner’s action role wasted in an exhausting kidnapping thriller that underwhelms.

The film is horribly dull, which is a shame. To put it another way, it’s a sheer waste of time. As you can probably guess, Janney plays Lou — a hermit-like landowner in a small Pacific Northwest coastal community. Her character unfolds as a gruff, self-sufficient loner living an intentionally simple life in the woods with a dog until one night when chaos breaks loose amid a violent storm.

With a dramatic storm setting the stage for the film, the night follows Lou’s broke tenant Hannah (Jurnee Smollett) running to Lou for help when her problematic ex, Phillip (Logan Marshall-Green), kidnaps their little girl, Vee (Ridley Bateman). Hannah discovers that her landlord is surprisingly adept at tracking and killing as she heads out into the rainswept wilderness to find her daughter. It becomes apparent quickly that Lou must be hiding a dark secret.

The film fleetingly teases and tries hard to convince us that it really is about something before lifting the veil, only to leave us scratching our heads. The mysterious nature of Lou and the motivation behind her sudden interest in Hannah are not as flabbergasting as the film makes those out to be. Nonetheless, Janney’s dominating performance as an unlikely action hero somehow saves the movie. What could have been a taut little action movie is instead made more difficult to engage with by a bland, derailing twist that complicates and confuses. In a poor attempt to replace thrill with sentiment, it pushes the movie into lackluster melodrama and takes the audience further away from action.

With disclosure of Lou’s secret past and her link to Phillip and Hannah as the movie progresses, the plot grows slow and stretched out. It is not until the film reaches its final part that we learn Lou’s biggest secret: she is not a mere stranger or landlord to Hannah and her daughter. It turns out that she is a former CIA agent with a personal connection to them. Lou is the mother of Hannah’s abusive ex-husband Philip. She rented her property to Hannah after she fled from him. Though this clarifies Lou’s and Hannah’s strange chemistry, it is not as surprising as it is made to look. Of course, this makes the movie lose much of its momentum and it ceases to be the action-packed adventure that at first it seemed to be. The domestic element turns it into a rather bland thriller.

Despite the Oscar winner’s entertaining performance as the misanthropic retiree with a knack for delivering sharp quips, the movie is drab and boring.

Perhaps a stronger storyline and a more detailed backstory for Lou could have made the narrative more compelling. Instead, the plot becomes muddled because we only get to see the bare bones of Lou’s character and her relationship with Hannah and Phillip. Despite the Oscar winner’s entertaining performance as the misanthropic retiree with a knack for delivering sharp quips, the movie is drab and boring.

The 109-minute film is mostly unimpressive. It proves unworthy of both Janney’s talents and our attention. Despite good performances by everyone, the complicated script falls short of being entertaining. If this was simply a movie about a retiree saving an abducted girl by kicking bad guys, it would have been more enjoyable. Instead, there are many perplexing aspects to the film that make it difficult to watch. First, the film is set in the Reagan era, which appears to serve only to rule out cell phones and use 1980s music. Then out of nowhere, the movie becomes shockingly violent without cause. Into the bargain, we see a hurricane-like storm occurring during the kidnapping and near-constant rain throughout the film. While it might sound intriguing at first, it never feels more than a plot device. These unenthusiastic choices not only make Lou a little too meh but also leave an impression that the directors lacked an understanding of the genre.

The anticlimactic let-down does not deter Janney from selling the movie. The 62-year-old consistently adds depth to clichéd characters like Lou. Women over 50 in action movies may find Lou a game changer because it tackles ageism in a powerful way. A heroine, arthritic, warning a half-her-age not to slow down is all that ageism needed to be kicked to the curb. In terms of the script, however, the film does not possess any captivating or thrilling elements.

The writer is a freelance  contributor