Produced by Luc Besson, Colombiana bears several of his trademark cinematic obsessions: anorexic prepubescent action girls out to avenge their death of their families at the hands of a ruthless and corrupt CIA operation, lots of martial arts violence married to firearms and explosives.

In Colombiana, Zoe Saldana plays an alternate version of Leon’s Natalie Portman. Imagine if that 12-year-old girl completes her training from her avuncular hitman protector (played here by Cliff Curtis), grows up and becomes an elite assassin and starts taking her revenge – this is essentially the premise of this film. Instead of perving on a barely legal Natalie Portman in white singlets, the film offers up Zoe Saldana in a series of tight leather catsuits stealthily performing a series of complex stealth assassinations of various baddies who coincidentally were all involved in the murder of her parents and no doubt deserve what they’re getting, so her character’s cred as an avenging angel won’t be sullied by the fact that she’s still essentially a Colombian mafia hitman.

While the screenplay may lack any surprises, some of the assassinations (notably a secret assassination in a police station and a sequence involving a baddie’s shark-invested pool) are so intricately plotted, they become the set-pieces of the film. The script is highly improbable and flimsy at parts but the action zips along fast enough for you to miss various plot holes.

Coming out of the Luc Besson B-film production line, Colombiana is an adequate and competent action thriller that only lacks the producer’s personal flair to make it a classic of pulp cinema.