★★½
“2-for-1 is not always a great deal.”
If Ryan looks familiar, that’s because she is. She starred in Survivor – no, the other film by that name – and also 626 Evolution, making a fairly decent impression in the former, and let down significantly by the approach of the latter. There, she was billed as Danielle Chuchran: not sure if the name change is a result of marriage, or simply a realization that “Ryan” is a lot easier to remember. Whether you will want to is a different matter: she’s likely the best thing in this, and when it appears, the action is decent. There just isn’t enough of it, and the stuff between the set-pieces ranges from mediocre to cringeworthy.
It begins in a convenience store, where Jimmy (Lawrence, who a very long time ago, was one of the kids in Mrs. Doubtfire!) is chatting up the pretty clerk, Natasha (Ryan). Two armed mem show up: before Jimmy can blink, Natasha has killed them both, grabbed her bug-out bag and exited. A stunned Jimmy decides not to stick around, and drives off, only for Natasha to pop up in the back. Turns out the store was a front for the mob to launder money, and she had skimmed $600,000. They – in particular, the boss’s son, Ellis (Joy) and his top fixer, Ask (Olivieri) – are out to make an example of her. Yet there’s one big twist which might work in her favour: Natasha has a split personality.
There’s Nat, the sensible, quiet one. Then there’s Tasha, the unrepentant bad-ass who can take very good care of herself. Jimmy has to try and figure out what to do, and with whom, when all he really wants to do is get to the ocean and scatter the ashes of his late brother. Meanwhile, Ellis is bickering with Ask, and being brow-beaten with his father. If this all sounds like a lot: it is. The film basically tries to do too much, and ends up doing little of it justice. It’s the male characters who drag it down: Jimmy is vanilla pudding, while Ellis is a whiny little puppy. Just pit Ask against Nat and Tasha, and be done with it.
Ryan does know how to handle herself in action. The best sequence has her taking on two thugs in hand-to-hand combat, while Jimmy fails to figure out how to operate a gun. This is imaginative and well-done, using her agility, speed and flexibility to counter their strength. On the other hand, then there’s the bit where she steals a bow and a horse from some LARPers and… Sorry, I’ve lost the will to type it out. The film needs to pick a tone and stick to it, Stanley not being able to pull off the shifts necessary. That’s even aside from qualms about the glib use of mental illness as convenient plot device, Nat or Tasha showing up exactly when needed. I hope Ryan can find a better vehicle for her talents, since she deserves better.
Dir: Shane Stanley
Star: Danielle C. Ryan, Matthew Lawrence, Kevin Joy, Dawn Olivieri