★½
“May contain boredom, stupidity and poor action.”
There’s an old joke about bad movies: “This film wasn’t released, it escaped.” It seems disturbingly appropriate here, however, considering the shooting of this finished in October 2021, and it has been part of our annual previews for 2022, 2023 and 2024. Quite why Netflix sat on the end product close to three years, I don’t know. But having watched it, I can confidently say: it wasn’t long enough. This is the kind of movie that left me feeling actively more stupid by the end of it. Alba plays Parker, a soldier who returns to her hometown in rural New Mexico after her father is killed in a mile accident. Only, of course [and that whirring sound is my eyes rolling], it turns out not to be an accident.
From here spirals off a ludicrous plot in which local ne’er-do-well Elvis (Weary) is selling heavy armaments, include machine guns and RPGs, to domestic terrorists. His family basically runs the town: brother, Jesse (Webber), is the town sheriff, and his father is Senator Ezekiel Swann (Hall), an obviously Republican politician running for re-election. It’s up to Parker to stop the bad guys, who are so evil, they burn down the bar which is Parker’s inheritance from her father. Named after her grandmother, he apparently built it when he wasn’t busy being a miner. Or a Green Beret. It’s all a bit vague. This is as authentic a portrayal of Hispanic culture as you’d expect, given a script written by three white people, which unironically uses the word “Latinx”.
It’s also directed by an Indonesian which, in a nod to the politics criticized by the movie, makes me want to go on a rant about foreigners coming over here and takin’ er jerbs. For, after all, there are plenty of American directors who are perfectly capable of making shitty action films with ham-handed social commentary. We do not need to be outsourcing this work. However, we maybe should look at outsourcing Jessica Alba. Possibly replacing her with a stick insect, since she is among the least convincing soldiers I’ve seen. The action is equally dumb: it’s the kind of movie where a bad guy picks up a chainsaw in a hardware store fight, and it starts, apparently being fully fuelled.
The whole thing is littered with similar elements which had me shaking my head. Parker can waltz into any location at will, such as finding the exact file she needs in the police station within ten seconds. While most recent Netflix action heroine films have been forgettably acceptable ways to pass a couple of hours, this one probably competes with Interceptor over the coveted crown of Worst Netflix Original. It’s amazing to think how far Alba has fallen from the glory days of work like Sin City. For Jessica’s sake, I hope her cosmetics company endeavour is working out. Because she seriously needs to rethink this whole acting thing.
Dir: Mouly Surya
Star: Jessica Alba, Mark Webber, Anthony Michael Hall, Jake Weary