Badh (Agent Zero) (2025) || Subtitles So Bad, I Missed Duolingo

I don’t mind fast-paced storytelling, covert missions, or even layered betrayals that make me pause and rewind a film. But what I do mind is when I can’t even follow what’s going on, not because the film is complex, but that something as basic as language gets in the way. And sadly, that was my experience with this film.

Synopsis

This film follows Badh (Marine Vacth), a former elite French intelligence agent trained by the DGSE, basically one of those “do the dirty work for the state” operatives. She was once deployed to eliminate high-value targets, including an arms dealer in Syria, but things went left when she was betrayed by her own agency.

Trying to escape that life, she disappears and rebuilds a quiet existence in Morocco, living under the radar with her husband Ilias, who works as a police officer. But peace doesn’t last long. When Ilias is shot and left for dead by a cartel linked to Mansour Khoury, a powerful crime boss, Badh is forced to return to the violent identity she tried to bury.

What follows is a revenge-driven mission where betrayal, espionage, and buried secrets collide, especially when she discovers that the enemies she’s fighting may be connected to people from her past, including her former intelligence handler Joanna Walter.

My Review (what actually works)

From a purely action standpoint, I won’t lie, this film has its moments. The fight scenes are clean and very intentional. There’s no unnecessary noise according to my observations or over-the-top dramatics. All you get is just straight-up calculated violence.

You can tell the film was going for that female Bourne / Taken energy, where you have a quiet but deadly protagonist who doesn’t waste time talking when they can act. Well, Marine Vacth carries that role well by not overreacting but moving instead like someone who has done this before, and will do it again if necessary.

There’s also something interesting about the theme of state betrayal. The idea that the same system that trained you can discard you hits differently.

Now Let Me Talk About What Ruined It For Me

The subtitles did. I’m still annoyed thinking about it. Because this film is originally in French, and the version I watched had terrible subtitles. Important conversations felt incomplete plus there were scenes where characters were clearly revealing something crucial, and I was just sitting there like, “Am I missing something or is this just badly translated?” That was frustrating as this is a film built on betrayal, hidden motives and shifting alliances.

So if the dialogue isn’t clear, the entire story starts to feel messy, not literally, but because you can’t properly follow it. Instead of being immersed, I was constantly distracted, trying to interpret subtitles instead of watching the film. And that breaks the experience completely. Anyway, I still had to pay close action to really understand.

Another thing is that the film had the potential to be more than just action. A woman betrayed by her country, a life rebuilt from nothing, Love disrupted by violence and revenge fueled by both pain and duty, sure is a lot to work with. But, the film doesn’t fully explore these. It just brushes past them and leans more into action sequences. So while I understood Badh’s motivation, I didn’t feel it as deeply as I wanted to. And again, maybe the subtitle issue played a role in that disconnect.

All in all, Agent Zero is not a terrible film. It’s actually quite decent in terms of action and pacing. It knows what it wants to be and it sticks to that. But for me, the experience was heavily affected by poor subtitles, and that’s something I can’t ignore. Because no matter how good a film is, if I can’t fully understand it, I can’t fully enjoy it. There’s a solid movie in there, I just didn’t get the best version of it.

Rating: 6.5/10

That said, I will be dusting my Duolingo account. This time I’m learning French.

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