Plot: What’s it about?
After her husband goes missing during their honeymoon in the Caribbean, Ava Grant (Gina Carano) takes matters into her own hands and goes on a hunt to find him. She’s had extensive training and isn’t afraid to take violent actions to get her husband Derek (Cam Gigandet) back. The first chunk of the film is devoted to showing them having fun and enjoying their new life together. Derek breaks his leg after an accident and is taken away in an ambulance. Ava is (naturally) upset and when the ambulance drivers won’t let her ride along, she follows them to the hospital. It’s here that she quickly learns something isn’t right. Derek goes missing, and Ava scours all over in hopes of finding him. We see quick glimpses of her training, but she’s essentially turned into a superhero. She shows zero remorse after torturing and killing several people. The story is relatively simple and straightforward and when we learn the reason why Derek was abducted, it’s actually fairly clever. Director John Stockwell is good at keeping things moving at a nice pace as well.
If Gina Carano hopes to continue her career in acting then I think she needs to brush up on her acting chops a bit. She’s not bad by any means, but she’s a little rough around the edges. In some scenes it appears as if she’s unsure where to look. I was never a big fan of Haywire, but she definitely didn’t help matters there. She does handle the physical demands, though. Some scenes become more than a little ridiculous, however. The way she takes out several men without thinking twice is a little off putting as well. Once the twist is revealed things become a bit predictable, but the film does a lot right. I’d say a rental isn’t out of the question. It’s a decent time-waster and you could do a lot worse. Oh, and Danny Trejo is in it. He seems to pop up in just about every movie these days.
Video: How’s it look?
The image is solid on all fronts. The early half of the film is good at displaying the nice Caribbean setting. At times it looks like we’re looking at a screen-saver. Colors are always strong and consistent without any real issues to speak of. Background shots and nicely detailed as well. The print is flawless as well. That should be expected with such a recent film, but you never know. The image is AVC encoded with a 1.85:1 transfer.
Audio: How’s it sound?
The Dolby TrueHD track is strong too. Vocals were clean sounding with few problems and reproduced nicely. The action comes through strongly and makes good use of the rear channels. Bullets fly left and right, there are punches and kicks throughout, it’s all here and it all sounds fine. Fans should be pleased and it’s a nice companion to the strong visuals.
Supplements: What are the extras?
- In the Blood: Behind the scenes – Is a 19 minute featurette that features the usual “Talking Heads” where everyone talks about how great everyone else is and how happy they are to be part of the project.
- Previews
- Digital Copy/DVD
