A welcome action lead for the Oscar winner is wasted in a Netflix kidnap thriller that underwhelms and exhausts.

Things seem to be slightly improving this year with more women of a similar age allowed into the action genre that has traditionally left them unarmed, with Michelle Yeoh and Viola Davis fighting their way to box office success (before Jamie Lee Curtis returns to “end” Michael Myers next month), and now, inevitably, Netflix is bringing up the rear with a more conventional vehicle, this time for Oscar winner Allison Janney.

If only it wasn’t called Lou, a dreadfully silly title that’s hard to say out loud with any vague sense of excitement (just try it – Lou, Lou, Lou).

It’s sadly also hard to watch it while feeling any vague sense of excitement or any sense of anything, really, a film that works best as a thrilling concept – Allison Janney does Taken – than a real thing.

Described initially as Thelma & Louise meets Taken, Lou is a bit more like Sleeping with the Enemy meets Rambo meets Taken but sadly nowhere near as much fun as that might make it sound.