★★½
“Better red than dead.”
I was looking forward to this one quite a bit. Lyde is no stranger to these pages, having a track record of low-budget action heroines to his name: Survivor, 626 Evolution and a couple of entries in the Mythica franchise, including the best of them, Mythica: The Iron Crown. The star here, Melanie Stone, was also a big part of Mythica, where she played Marek the necromancer, so I was excited to see what their reunion might bring. And… s’okay, I suppose. In particular, you will need to be in a very forgiving mood as far as the plot goes. The heroine is Scarlett (Stone), a nursing student at odds with her father, Cal (Krause), a single parent who keeps her on a tight leash and has trained Scarlett in all manner of unusual skills, from martial arts to pursuit evasion. For we know, and Scarlett doesn’t, that her father is a globetrotting spy, who is concerned his pigeons might come home to roost one day.
Turns out, he’s right to worry, and he is kidnapped by people who want a bioweapon he is holding, so they can sell it to the highest bidder. Scarlett has to turn her skills to practical use, locate the people who abducted her father and release him. Except, her first attempt instead frees Sean (McConnell), an associate of her father who had also been kidnapped by the bad guys. Somewhat reluctantly, he teams up with Scarlett as her investigation brings her ever closer to a face-off where she’ll exchange her father for the vial of bio-nastiness. One of the numerous problems with the story is, the twist in the second half is blatantly obvious. I’m usually easy to fool, but spotted it quickly. Even worse, Chris wandered in about half-way and within five minutes, had also nailed it. That Scarlett was apparently oblivious, doesn’t quite jibe with her supposedly razor-sharp abilities, that let her easily out-think and out-fight the professionals the rest of the time.
Stone is not bad, clearly doing a lot of her own action, to decent effect; even simple things like a foot-chase, which sees her leaping fences in a way which would have many actresses calling for a stunt double. However, it feels as if she takes a back seat to her father as things proceed. While Krause is actually surprisingly good, he’s no Scott Adkins – and to be honest, we’re not here for him, but the action promised by the sleeve, which puts Scarlett front and centre. I think this might have worked better had they been a fully-functional and active father-daughter partnership before his abduction (the end vaguely hints at that as a possible future direction). As is, the repeated flashbacks needed to cover her training makes for a bit of an awkward structure, not adding much to proceedings. The film is a good idea, and the low-budget is well enough disguised not to be a problem. The script, however, is well below par, and ends up taking the whole endeavour down with it.
Dir: John Lyde
Star: Melanie Stone, Brian Krause, David McConnell