Close  ★★★

DESPITE the boring title, Close is an efficient little thriller that holds the attention throughout.

Noomi Rapace plays a no-nonsense mercenary hired to protect a spoilt mining heiress.

While it’s a set-up we’ve seen many times before, having two females as the main protagonists adds interest and variety to the familiar proceedings.

A prologue in a war zone introduces us to Rapace’s character Sam Carlson who single-handedly gets herself and two journalists out of a deadly road-side attack.

Jump to England and the death of a mining magnate whose company was in the middle of a bitter corporate battle with a rival company to gain control over phosphate mining rights in the African nation of Zambia.

The man’s widow Rima, played by Indira Varma, is tough as nails and has assumed control, but she is blind-sided by her late husband’s decision to leave all his shares to her step-daughter Zoe.

This gives Zoe tremendous potential power and adds to the general threat level against her, particularly as the family must travel to Morocco for the transaction proceedings.

Rima wants a woman to provide Zoe’s around-the-clock close protection and Sam reluctantly has to take the assignment.

Of course the pair don’t get on, but the cliches are kept to a minimum and it’s not long before Sam needs to protect Zoe from a night-time assault by armed men on a fortress home that is meant to have impenetrable security.

The pair go on the run, unable to trust anyone and cornered several times, resulting in bloody and impactful actions scenes and some unexpected moments.

Writer and director Vicky Jewson tries to mould corporate thriller and an emotional back-story for Sam into the main chase narrative but these are more distracting than interesting.

Both the action and chemistry between Rapace and Olivia Jewson (the director’s sister) as Zoe are good enough to hold the attention and propel the film by themselves.