In between arranging to keep her mother and her cutie-pie daughter safe from harm and trying to contact a detective who promised to help her, she ends up having to single-handedly fend off a series of trained killers and prostitute assassins in fetishized costumes that pour forth from other apartments in the makeshift brothel. They come and go through Everly’s door like critters in a whack-a-mole game after being alerted that a bounty has been placed on her head.
A period of relative silence follows so certain plot details can be elaborated upon and for one dead body to briefly revive to provide Hayek with some human interaction. Everly is able to keep an eye on activity in the building via a video monitor and eventually realizes there is no escape while ever more threatening visitors arrive. Of particular note is a vicious attack dog named Bonzai who learns the hard way that grenades are not to be toyed with and the Sadist, a cravat-wearing creep who brings along a half-naked masochist locked in a cage.
It would take a Quentin Tarantino or maybe a Luc Besson to be able to smoothly blend such gruesome doings (the increasingly outlandish array of weaponry, from samurai swords to rocket launchers, is rather impressive if you are into such things) with scenes of matriarchal love and devotion. But Lynch and his writer are more adept at oozing guts than heartfelt emotion. And given the not-exactly-conducive circumstances, Hayek’s sexual charisma more or less goes untapped save for her body-clinging apparel (she eventually dons a low-cut tank top and yoga pants).
Odd how there are two current films in theaters about women being punished and abused for the benefit of men. Unlike “Fifty Shades of Grey,” however, “Everly” does not romanticize its intentions. It even allows room for a brief flicker of female dignity. When one of the bad guys taunting Everly looks around at the dead bodies littering her place and dismissively sneers, "That's a lot of dead whores," she angrily retorts, "You don't get to call them that." And that is as close to enlightenment as “Everly” gets.
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