'Red Sparrow' Review: A Spy Thriller That Explores the Brutality of Sexual Assault

Red Sparrow is not a pleasant movie by any stretch of the imagination. Rather than offering the escapism the spy genre usually provides of glamorous agents and globetrotting escapades, Francis Lawrence's is a brutal plunge into a world of sexual assault and degradation. Although it plays by the beats of the spy drama to the point where it feels like the story is devolving into an extended cat-and-mouse game, Red Sparrow is at its most electrifying when it feels like a raw nerve about how power i...