Genre: Action/Superhero
Director: Michelle MacLaren
Writer: APJ
Based on DC Comics characters
Cast: Hailee Steinfeld, Frank Langella, Michael Imperioli, Matthew Daddario, John Magaro, Jon Bon Jovi, Isabela Moner, Franco Nero, Shea Whigam, Rhys Coiro, Hannah Ware, Anthony Carrigan
Plot: Helena Bertinelli (Hailee Steinfeld) is living alone on the Asaro Fmily farm in Sicily. She uses a crossbow to hunt deer, operating the weapon with impressive skill. Cleaning and dressing the deer, she flashes back to the night her family was killed. Her father Franco Bertinelli (Rhys Coiro) arrived home and began to beat his wife Maria (Hannah Ware) for not having his dinner prepared, despite her protesting that it was indeed ready. Eight-year-old Helena and her brother Pino hid behind the couch. After Franco is done beating Maria, the family finally sits down for dinner. Helena coldly tells her father that she prayed for his death. He jokes that perhaps she should take over the family business instead of Pino. Franco apologizes to Maria for having upset everyone. She offers to forget about the whole incident, when suddenly a masked man enters the house and kills Franco, Maria and Pino. The man spares Helena for some reason.
Back in the present, Helena watches an out of place car drive near the farmhouse entrance. As three men get out of the car and walk to the door, she remembers that her family's killer stood in the dining room doorway for a moment. Helena shoots the men with her crossbow as soon as they enter the house. She remembers that her family's killer snatched the cross from around her neck before leaving. She has tied up the three men who entered the house, all three bleeding from arrow wounds, and has taken their guns. She sneaks out to their car. She gets into the backseat of the town car and is shocked to find her Uncle Tommy (Michael Imperioli) inside. They discuss her upcoming 21st birthday, at which she finally becomes eligible to receive her trust. They also discuss the Asaro family, all of whom were arrested five years ago. Salvatore Asaro had been like a brother, but he was made to work for his father Nicola Salvatore which led to his arrest. Now that he's on her mind, Helena asks Tommy to arrange a visit with him. Helena packs a bag and leaves with Tommy to stay at a villa belonging to a mysterious family business associate nicknamed "The Pope" (Franco Nero).
Helena arrives in Palermo to visit Salvatore in jail. After she is checked for weapons, she sees that Salvatore (John Magaro) looks horrible, like he's been hit by a truck. She leaps up from her chair and begins attacking the prison officers, telling Salvatore that she's not leaving without him. The officers surround her with their weapons. Just as they are about to attack her, one of the officers gets a message over his radio telling them to back down and allow her to leave unpunished. Outside in the car, Tommy freaks out when she tells him what she tried to do. On their way back to the villa, he tells her he has no idea who could have made the call to get her out of the station without being arrested, pointing out that, if anything, people would have more reason to get rid of her than to save her.
Arriving at the villa, Tommy reintroduces Helena to her cousin Monica (Isabela Moner), who immediately begins complaining that Helena will be sharing her room. Tommy tells Helena that another family, the Angelos, are all staying at the villa. Helena excuses herself to the Pope's personal chapel. While she's praying in the chapel, a stranger (Matthew Daddario) enters to do the same. She looks at the man's eyes and has a vision of the two of them getting married. She runs from the church, and the stranger follows, introducing himself as Tony Angelo. Later at a dinner attended by both families, Nino Angelo (Jon Bon Jovi) mentions that his son Tony tells him that he remembers Helena from kindergarten back in Gotham City.
For the next couple of weeks, Tony makes himself a fixture in Helena's life by already being in the chapel when she arrives to pray. Unable to visit Salvatore because of her actions at the jail, she reads about his trial - for 18 counts of murder - in the local newspaper. She observes that her uncle is never in any meetings between Nino Angelo and the Pope - who appears to be one of the top men in Sicily.
On the eve of Helena's 21st birthday, Helena and Tony take a walk on the villa grounds. As a gift, Tommy gives Helena her mother's rosary. They almost kiss, but Helena runs away, telling him he scares her. While she runs, Tony tells her the same thing, that she's scared him since kindergarten. Returning to her room, Helena finds Monica beaten bloody. Monica tells her that Nino did it, but that nobody can know. Tommy enters the room, and Monica, panicking, tells him that Helena is the one that beat her. Tommy slaps her and tells her to get her inheritance the next day and get out of their lives. Helena enters another building at the villa and confronts Nino Angelo. He pulls a gun on her and tells her that he's untouchable.
Leaving, Helena plans to go see Salvatore in the morning, the only person she trusts to advise her on what to do. She goes back into the house to announce that she's leaving, she finds Tommy seated in a chair, drinking a glass of whiskey. He tells her that Salvatore has been killed in a prison fight. He tells her he can't take her back to America after what she did to Monica. Later that night, Helena dresses in an elaborate costume and sneaks through Nino Angelo's window and delivers a swift beating with a baseball bat.
The next day she visits her lawyer (Shea Whigam) about her trust fund, who tells her that the Bertinelli fortune comes to less than $2 million. Knowing he's lying, she reaches across his desk with a letter opener threatening to cut his tongue out. She bargains with him, if he tells her where the rest of the money is she'll pretend to believe him and find the money on her own.
She finds Tony when she returns to the chapel, who tells her that his father was beaten by a group of thugs the night before and his family is leaving for Gotham early. He was waiting to say goodbye to her. Tony confesses that on the day they met in the chapel he had a vision of them being married there. They share their first kiss, and he asks her to come back to Gotham with him. Helena tells him no, she says she's never going back to Gotham. Helena leaves the room telling Tony that they can't be together because there's too much they don't know about each other.
The lawyer informs Helena that her missing money is going to be divvied up in the catacombs beneath the opera, providing those involved with alibis. Clad in an all-black bodysuit with a weapons belt, she watches as six men enter a room in the opera basement. Helena bursts into the room after them. She takes out all the men, recognizing the oldest of them as Stefano Mandragora (Frank Langella) - the worldwide boss of bosses, whom she remembers giving assassination orders to the Asaro family when she was growing up. Helena finds the keys to six deposit boxes in Mandragora's pocket.
The next night, Mandragora sits at his kitchen table with bandages on his face. His men ask him about the bandages. He tells them that at least five big commandos busted in and stole the keys. He is informed that Helena Bertinelli was given her $2 million and that she is under the belief that's all there is. Mandragora says that's really all there is now. He decides to set into motion plans to have Helena killed following a party, after which they can turn their attention to finding the money stolen from them.
Helena goes back to her hotel where she looks through some mail waiting for her. The first is a letter from Tony, writing that he believes that she will return to Gotham City because they are meant to be together. The second letter is an invitation to Mandragora's party, complete with a note to go see a famous fashion designer to get a dress that has already been paid for - a birthday present from the "family". When she opens the third letter, she runs out of the hotel. She runs to a church, entering to find Salvatore Asaro, dressed like a priest. He explains that while in prison he fell in love with a nun. She helped him escape by staging a fight, during which he swapped clothes with a guard who was killed. When Helena tells Salvatore that she wants to kill the men who murdered her family, Salvatore tells her that he knows who ordered her parents killed: Mandragora.
Helena goes to see the fashion designer who fits her for the dress he plans to launch in Milan next season. After they discuss her loath of dresses, she asks to retain his services for a secret project, promising to kill him if anyone finds out about it.
The party is going on at Mandragora's. Helena enters through a window, in full costume. She corners Mandragora. He mocks her costume and throws a knife at her and signals for guards. She catches the knife. Helena subdues the guards, then shoots Madgragora through the hands with her crossbow to pin him to a door. He accuses her of stealing his money, and she rebuts that he stole her money and had her family killed in front of her. She demands to know the name of the trigger man. Mandragora insists that she doesn't know the name, just that he is called Omerta. Helena kills Mandragora with a shot to the chest. Helena leaps out the window. While the guards search for her, The Pope calls out to her and tells her she's done him a favor, and he can do one for her, then tells her to come to Mandragora's funeral.
Helena attends Mandragora's funeral, at which The Pope points out the hitman, Omerta (Anthony Carrigan), who murdered her family. She follows the man from a distance for 24 hours, ending up in Venice for Carnival. Omerta puts on a devil costume for the event. Helena continues to follow him, only to lose him in the crowd. Omerta ambushes her and tackles her into the canals. While they fight in the water, Omerta ties her hair to a pipe and leaves her. As she cuts herself free, Omerta tells her he plans to hang around Venice getting drunk for several hours, then fly to Gotham in the morning. As he leaves, he advises her that if she wants to be a "huntress", she better get better at stalking her prey.
Helena arrives in Gotham the next evening. She has her taxi take her directly to St. Augustine's Church. She arrives in the middle of a wedding, and from across the street is shocked to see the groom, Tony Angelo, walking out with a bride.
Helena changes into her costume and heads to her childhood home. She remembers the night her family was murdered again, but snaps out of it when she hears footsteps. Omerta tells her that he spared her because of the old saying about not leaving your enemy's son alive for fear of revenge, but that there's no such saying about daughters. Helena tells him that maybe there should be, before shooting him in the chest with her crossbow. He falls down, bleeding, in the very dining room that he killed her family in. She notices her cross around his neck and takes it back.
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