Here's a bad female assassin film attempting to be a cross between le femme nikita and the godfather; both far superior movies.A Russian woman(Stana Katic who is actually Croatian and Serbian) as a deadly girl seeking revenge for her sisters' gang rape by a bunch of neo-Nazis somehow tied in with a Greek mafioso type played by veteran actor Tom Berenger in a Brando like Don Corleone lite. what's missing is Coppola and every other aspect of the great Godfather and of course the awesome Marlon Brando.Every gangster cliché is used here from missing money to torture scenes and rival Mexican bad guys in night club shoot out that borders on the ridiculous. I'll give it a 5 as a very average crime- drama with decent acting and a by the numbers script.

A Russian immigrant's sister is raped and brutalized by a gang of Neo Nazi scum(Tom Sizemore and James Franco are two of them)and she believes her wealthy Greek mobster lover, Virgil Valados(Tom Berenger)is responsible for covering it up(Dominique Swain is a hooker who was there when the poor girl was gang banged and tortured). This immigrant, Raina(Stana Katic), attempts to kill Virgil and almost does so, also running away with two million dollars from a safe..this means someone within Virgil's organization helped Raina out because she didn't know the combination to the safe. Raina begins hunting down all the human dirtbags who participated in her sister's mistreatment(found in a garbage dumpster after three days, the experience leaving her mentally destroyed beyond repair, her face scarred from a bottle broken across it), stabbing each one in the heart with a special knife she carries. Michael Biehn is Virgil's loyal enforcer, Lee, with a nasty streak, who has been locked up for a while, having returned to help his boss find Raina. Virgil calls on a dirty cop, Beck(Paul Sloan), who owes him for helping him keep his brother out of harm's way, to bring him Raina, drawing the ire of Lee who believes he(and his devious English girlfriend junkie Penny, played with a Cockney accent by Amanda Brooks)can do the job himself sufficiently. Meanwhile, Virgil's brother Alex(William Forsythe)might know more about this entire situation than he's revealing. Alex and Lee are always at each other's throats, mainly it's because both want to be Virgil's closest confident. While Beck looks for Raina, he must somehow keep his partner, Hanover(Kelly Hu)in the dark, not an easy task. Virgil's wife, Sylvia(Diane Venora)knows that her husband is deeply in love with Raina and this definitely ruins their marriage.Nick Vallelonga's Stilleto is quite a showcase for the beauty Stana Katic(who would not longer after show up in the James Bond film Quantum of Solace)and essentially follows her as she kills a hell of a lot of people. Stilleto is without a doubt a quintessential rape revenge crime thriller, except in this case, Raina is assassinating those behind her sister's rape and torture. Stilleto is full of unpleasant, unsavory characters and I think the audience for this movie will have no problem siding with Raina as she buries her knife in the chests of each and every one of these rotten apples(although, she also uses a gun when necessary). This movie is a real blood bath as it features savage violence and cruelty..we go into an underbelly and are presented with real trash. The plot reveals a mastermind who had orchestrated everything, which does eventually become known after a carnage of dead bodies is left behind Raina. Betrayal, manipulation, backstabbing, and distrust all play a hand in the way Stilleto shapes itself over the running time. Poor DB Sweeney gets worked over real good by Lee and Penny as they fish for information, thinking he knows who was behind the robbery(his face pummeled into unrecognizable twisted flesh, his arm torn apart by a sand blaster). A crowbar is rammed into a victim's throat(and through the skull), a bullet blows a hole through a face, machine guns and pistols are used on a consistent basis considering the lifestyles of those involved in this movie's plot, and, as mentioned above, Raina takes delight in slowly pressing her knife into the chests of those who have forever damaged her beloved sister. Once again, Stilleto is a movie which takes us into a world of dangerous and sleazy people, and these low lives die one by one for their roles in a heinous act that, to be honest, justifies vengeance..not an advocate of violence, but you certainly can see why Raina responds the way she does. Beck is pulled into this and decides to help Raina, really wanting her to get out of town. Beck's investigation might turn up evidence establishing secrets yet unraveled.

Raina (Stana Katic - "Castle", Quantum of Solace)is out for revenge. She takes it in the opening on a former lover (Tom Berenger), who manages to survive only, as he jokes, because of his lifestyle - a big belly! He puts Beck (Paul Sloan) on her tail, but she is hard to catch as she pops up all over the city like Jason, slashing her way through various bad guys, even Tom Sizemore, who imagines himself a player after leaving a group of Nazis who sell crack to teen girls before turning them out.At the same time, we are seeing Amanda Brooks really do a dance on some others. She & her boyfriend Lee (Michael Biehn - Aliens, The Terminator) have an interesting way of removing tats; some massive gunfights, and lots more deaths.A good slasher/gangster film.

This movie suffers from two problems: the cast is too big and if you don't read the back of the cover, you have no idea why Stana Katic ("Castle") is carving up people with an edged weapon that is too big to be a knife and too small to be a sword.In a movie this long, you need to focus on the protagonist, the antagonist and the world they live in; everything else just bogs down the story. And in a revenge movie, you need to know why the protagonist is going after people, otherwise it makes it difficult for the audience to root for her.What saves this movie is a nice little twist at the end and the character of a cop working for the mob; he almost becomes the protagonist because you get to know him a little and sense that while he may be working for the mob, he is not dirty.All in all, barely worth the price of a rental, but I will keep an eye on the writer--he shows some potential.Note to the Publicity Department: If you're going to name a movie "Stiletto" and the cover is going to feature an armed woman, she should probably be holding the weapon rather than a pair of guns.