Tag: b

A Breed Apart

  By

★★½
“Dogged by problems”

I’ve seen a lot of reviews slagging this off as irredeemably bad, and that’s fair comment. Its execution is often lazy to the point of incompetence, and the talents of the cast are largely wasted. And, yet… Was I not entertained? More than I expected, reading those reviews. Oh, sometimes in the wrong way, certainly. But it’s clear the makers were in on the joke. To a certain degree, as with the likes of Sharknado, that critic-proofs it, because it is intended to be stupid and implausible. When you have a dog running around for half the film with a wine-bottle on its muzzle, or canines which can climb trees and ropes… Yeah, it’s clear the creators aren’t letting reality get in the way. 

This is a spiritual sequel to 2006’s The Breed, in which Michelle Rodriguez and her friends land on an island populated by feral attack dogs. Society wasn’t holding its breath for a follow-up, yet here we are. In this version, a film about those events gets abandoned, and 13 years later, influencer Vince Vertura brings five colleagues to the island location to rescue the now thoroughly wild pups. This goes about as well as you would expect, and they quickly start getting turned into doggie chow. Siblings Violet (Curry) and Collins (Steiner), have to try and survive, with the kinda help of Vertura’s personal assistant, Thalia (Gardner), and the other, largely useless, Internet personalities. 

I was hoping for more, based off the poster, and the fact that this re-teams Currey and Gardner, who worked so well together in the awesome Fall. This is not awesome, though I did laugh at the exchange between them:
– What idiots climb up a cellphone tower?
– Someone with a death wish, that’s who.
clearly intended as a knowing reference to their previous film. Oh, and if you are expecting much Hayden Panettiere, given the artwork, you will be disappointed. She shows up at the beginning, then vanishes until the very end. Though she does end up going full Kristi Noem on the dogs, as they besiege the boat on which Violet and Thalia are holed up. [Yeah, I watched a certain South Park episode last night!]

There is some light bow-work from Violet, and it’s certainly a movie that will be appreciated more by cat people, if you know what I mean. You will have to be very tolerant of effects for the dog attacks, which rarely reach the level of anything remotely convincing. Say what you like about The Breed, at least they did use real animals. These are largely bad CGI, and I speak as someone who has seen far too many straight-to-video Chinese films, which set the bar for bad CGI. The Furst’s filmography is littered with movies titled such as Trailer Park Shark or Ghost Shark, and this is not dissimilar. Indeed, at one point a dog falls overboard right into the mouth of a shark. If you don’t find that greatly amusing, this may not be for you.

Dir: The Furst Brothers
Star: Grace Caroline Currey, Virginia Gardner, Riele Downs, Zak Steiner

 

Black Bags

  By

★★½
“Lost luggage.”

The first half of this is better than average, setting up an intriguing scenario that feels as if it might be going somewhere. Unfortunately, the second half manages to go almost nowhere, the hard edge honed to that point being severely blunted. We end in something which feels more appropriate for an “Aren’t All Men Bastards?” marathon on the Lifetime channel. It centres on Tess (Rulin), a pregnant woman returning to her new home in the countryside on the bus – her husband having forbidden her to drive. However, she ends up collecting the wrong suitcase, picking up an identical one belonging to another passenger. When she gets home and opens it, she finds a severed head. Worse, the case’s owner is now at her door.

This is Sara (Vandervoort), a black-gloved killer, who now wants – no, make that requires – Tess’s help to dispose of the evidence. Sara does have the courtesy to explain why she is carrying about a head. Eleven years ago, she’d had an affair with a married man, resulting in a daughter. The child now has leukemia, and she went to ask the father for help. It did not go well. But what’s also clear is that there is a good deal going on, to which we, the audience, are not privy. Tess’s husband seems sketchy from the little we have seen of him, and it gradually also becomes apparent that the switching of bags was no random accident, Tess being very specifically the target. 

It’s during the disposal things start going wrong for the movie. An abandoned factory, I can accept. One with an open vat of bubbling green stuff, perfect for dissolving heads? A little too convenient.  Then, let’s go get pie together! And tell the waitress we literally just got away with murder! It feels quite at odds with the smart person Sara had been – those gloves are there for a reason. The more we find out, the more it feels like the script is shooting itself in the foot, while simultaneously tying itself in knots. Which is quite an achievement, if you think about it. It also drops the twist we’ve been anticipating since the beginning, though your reaction may be more “Huh” then “Wow”.

In the end, the biggest problem may be trying to make Sara sympathetic. Once it’s been established that she flat-out decapitated someone, it’s always going to be a difficult road back, regardless of her motivation (and by throwing not just a child, but a sick one at us there, the script is guilty of trying too hard). It is both more plausible and entertaining when she’s behaving like Villanelle, than when Sara is trying to be the concerned parent. Unfortunately, it’s the latter which becomes heavily weighted as we reach the end, she and Tess eventually seeming to bond over motherhood. A particularly superfluous coda whacks another half-star off the rating, and solidifies the final score as below average. Bit of a shame.

Dir: Josh Brandon
Star: Laura Vandervoort, Olesya Rulin, Ryan Francis, Drew Pollock

The Beta Project

  By

★
“Beta, in the other sense of the word.”

I usually strive to find something nice to say about most low-budget action heroine films. Maybe the soundtrack is cool. Or there’s one performance which stands out. But for this one, I’m really struggling. The good here more or less begins and ends with the synopsis, which is also why it’s here: “Four women are recruited into an organization that hunts the supernatural.” Mauser does appear to be on board with our field, and we’ve covered a couple of his films before, most recently the fairly decent Lady Lawman. While flawed, you could overlook the shortcomings if you squinted somewhat. This, however, is a clear step back, and was a real struggle to get through. 

In the scenario that unfolds here, there is indeed an unnamed organization, run by Rose (Nash). The supernatural in question is… Well, it’s basically vampires, and in particular the legendary Lilith (co-director Berkshire). She is supposed to have died centuries ago, but the group discover this is not the case. The decision is made to recruit four women to take on Lilith (who is not the hairy dude shown on the poster). Why does it have to be women, you may be asking. Good question. Pity it’s one the film is completely uninterested in answering. Not that it matters, because the group never really ends up getting recruited either. Instead, there’s just smuggler AJ (Rodriguez), who gets paired with the organization’s accountant (!) and… Well, not very much, either. They go rescue one of AJ’s pals. That’s just about it.

What we have here feels like it could, and should, have been taken care of inside the first ten minutes, instead of playing out at feature length, like a pilot movie for a TV series that nobody wants to watch. It’s full of interminable scenes which deserve to have died a death on the cutting-room floor, like the introduction of AJ and pals, sitting around a restaurant. Or the training scene where AJ and accountant get whacked with sticks a couple of times. The latter is actually pointed out by the characters as useless, in a way that I can only presume was intended to be funny. Guess what? It isn’t, in the slightest. 

This is in part because there’s no real difference between the stick-whacking and the “genuine” action scenes, which are utterly limp and unconvincing. When killed, the vampires “explode” in a shower of sparks, in a way done considerably better by the Buffy TV show, approaching thirty years ago. The performances are generally unconvincing too: Berkshire comes out okay, which may explain why she ends up also playing another recruit, Joy, in addition to the villainess. I kept expecting them to be sisters or something, but… Nope. Like so much else here, it was thoroughly pointless. All the goodwill Mauser picked up for the “can do” attitude of his previous films has been wasted; he’s now on my “approach with caution” list. 

Dir: Brett William Mauser and Dane Berkshire
Star: Cristina Cruz Rodríguez, Dane Berkshire, Katrina Nash, Brett Mauser

Brave Citizen

  By

★★★½
“Bully for you…”

It appears that Korean educational establishments seem to have the same problems as Japanese ones – at least, going by the way they are depicted in the respective country’s movies. I certainly would not want to be a teacher in either country. Here, Mooyoung High has an award-winning anti-bullying policy. It’s a complete fabrication, as both staff and pupils are fully aware. The roost is run by Han Soo-kang (Lee), whose parents hold so much influence, he can do whatever he wants. And what he wants to do is run a reign of terror with his clique. He already drove a substitute teacher to commit suicide, and is now focused on subjecting Go Jin-hyeong (Park J-w) to daily torture.

Into the school comes replacement teacher So Si-min (Shin). Initially, she appears meek and submissive, to a fault. But her background is the complete opposite. She’s actually a former boxer, who missed out on an Olympic spot because… of reasons, shall we say, and is also well-versed in a number of other martial arts. When she sees Han brutalizing Go, she steps in, though manages to defuse the situation without violence – at least, initially. Since she wants to become a permanent member of staff, she can’t unleash her skills on the bully openly. So she dons a cat mask, in order to beat Han up. The resulting humiliation drives him mad, and he vows to find and defeat the kitty vigilante, by any means necessary.

There’s a good deal to enjoy here, in particularly the performances by leads Shin and Lee. The former captures a multi-faceted personality in So, who has a strong inclination towards justice, but is aware of the need for restraint – again, at least, initially. I enjoyed how the film is basically romance-free. She has a friend who is a cop. but there’s no indication this is anything but platonic, and the film doesn’t waste any time pretending otherwise. On the other side, Lee makes for an easily hateable villain. Han is entirely aware that he is untouchable by the authorities at the school, and struts about arrogantly, like a psychotic peacock. Right from the first scene, you’ll be very keen for him to get his just deserts. 

It does, probably, take slightly too long to get there. While there’s no romance, the film does tend to stray off into subplots that we could have done without. The main one is So’s strained relationship with her father, dating back to the Olympic try-outs where… yeah, I can’t say that aspect rang particularly true, or added much to proceedings. The action is moderate: the cat mask leaves me wondering how much of it was being done by the lead actress. But even if it wasn’t her, it’s still fairly well-handled. The story develops mostly as expected – if you’re anticipating a final face-off in which her real identity is exposed to the school, you won’t be far wrong. But it doesn’t feel clichéd, and most of the 112 minutes go by more than pleasantly. 

Dir: Park Jin-Pyo
Star: Shin Hye-sun, Lee Jun-Young, Park Jung-woo, Park Hyuk-kwon

Baby Assassins 3

  By

★★★
“Sorry for laughing.”

I am increasingly coming to the conclusion that the Baby Assassins franchise may be some kind of surrealist joke, being played on me by its makers. I really want to love the series and, as with both Part 1 and Part 2, there are moments where I do. At points, I was genuinely considering this as a Top 10 movie I saw this year – not just among GWG movies either. But then, it’ll grind to a halt, with such dedication to being mind-numbingly tedious, that it feels almost like wilful self-sabotage. In reality, I think it’s more likely to be cultural and societal impenetrability. Some elements here are ones which are relatable to a Western audience. Others? Not so much. 

It takes place in Miyazaki, a seaside city in Japan. Our heroines, Chisato (Takaishi) and Mahiro (Izawa) are on a working holiday there. Or a holiday where work keeps interrupting, it’s hard to say. However, their commission becomes an issue, because another, non-guild assassin, Fuyumura (Ikematsu), is also on the job. The guild are unhappy, and order the pair not just to complete the commission, but also eliminate Fuyumura for cutting in on their turf. This will be easier said than done, even with the largely unwelcome help of guild supervisor, Minami (Maeda). She is less than impressed with the Gen Z approach of Chisato and Mahiro, who would rather be in a restaurant eating the renowned local beef. 

As before, it’s the action which really resonated with me, in particular a stunning series of close-quarters battles. And when I say “close”, I mean fights where the combatants are frequently inches from each other. The early sequence where Chisato goes up against Fuyumura is a good example: while there is a gun involved, there’s not enough space between them, for either to point it effectively at their opponent. [This is when I was thinking, potential top ten movie] It’s also notable that, in this installment, most of the sequences involve professional assassins going up against each other in one-on-one, or two-on-one, action, not the mass brawls of previous films. This exchange of quality for quantity is a better opportunity for the participants to show off actual skills.

But the stuff between the fights? Dear lord, this is mostly terrible. And, in a film which runs an entirely unnecessary one hundred and twelve minutes, it’s terrible at near-excruciating length. There are only so many times you can listen to Mahiro worry about forgetting Chisato’s 20th birthday before it becomes a chore, rather than a pleasure. For me, that limit is “once.” Being charitable, this kind of stuff probably plays better to a local audience, or maybe simply one closer to the protagonists’ ages. My tolerance for Gen Z shit is certainly closer to Minami’s, and may be lower still. I’ve no doubt I’ll be waiting for Baby Assassins 4; I just hope the makers decide that joke isn’t funny any more. 

Dir: Yugo Sakamoto
Star: Akari Takaishi, Saori Izawa, Sôsuke Ikematsu, Atsuko Maeda
a.k.a. Baby Assassins: Nice Days

Burial

  By

★★★
“Werwolfs, not werewolves…”

There’s an interesting idea here, which somewhat works. But it’s perhaps a little too grounded for its own good.  It starts in a London flat, where senior citizen Anna Marshall (Walter) ambushes an intruder, handcuffing him to a radiator. Turns out he’s not just a burglar. He knows about her past, and wants the truth. So she tells him a story… At the very end of World War II, her identity was Brana Brodskaya (Vega). She was one member in a small group of Russian soldiers, who have been given a very important task: transport a box back from Berlin to Moscow. Oh, and bury it every night. Inevitably, their curiosity overcomes them, and the box is opened, to reveal Hitler’s corpse inside. 

Naturally, the remaining German forces are very keen to re-capture the Fuhrer’s body, to preserve the myth of his escape and survival. The group become bogged down in a Polish village, under attack from Nazi Werwolfs. Not, please note, actual werewolves. Though I have to say, that would have been pretty damn cool [I’m a big fan of Dog Soldiers, which does pit British soldiers against actual werewolves] The Werwolfs were resistance forces, left behind by the Nazis behind Allied enemy lines, as they advanced towards Germany. This is fact. As depicted here, they wear animals pelts when they attack, while burning mushrooms and lichen which cause their target to hallucinate. This is… rather less certain, albeit also kinda cool. 

Brodskaya is, clearly, the moral compass of the group, who tries to keep her comrades on task too – neither of which prove easy. When half of them split off seeking the “spoils of war”, she goes after them to stop them from committing war crimes on the civilian population. The locals are just tired of the conflict, and have little patience for either occupiers or liberators, not trusting either side. Parker does a good job of depicting the murkiness of a situation like this, where the lines of morality aren’t as clear-cut as you would initially expect. But the heroine is mission-oriented as well, and when control of the cargo is lost, she leads the charge to recover it, knowing the threat its loss would pose. 

Unfortunately, I found there to be significant issues with pacing, especially in the middle third which seems to contain several too many underlit action scenes in the woods. I’ve read multiple complaints about it being marketed as a horror movie, and certainly, if that’s what you are expecting, you will be severely disappointed. I had no such prejudices and so didn’t mind too much. Though I would have extended the flashback further, since there seems to be a lot of interesting material covered at the end, in a bit of an info-dump by Marshall. Between that and the non-lycanthropic werewolves, this is why I reckon there’s a lot of potential left unexplored here. An excellent concept, let down by only average execution.

Dir: Ben Parker
Star: Charlotte Vega, Tom Felton, Barry Ward, Harriet Walter

 

Buried in Barstow

  By

★★★
“Cliffhanger in California.”

Before we go any further, you need to know one thing: do not expect complete resolution. This literally ends with “To be continued…” One of the major plot threads is wrapped up. But another remains largely unresolved, and the final few minutes start off another, almost entirely new one. The original intent was for this to be the first in a series of made for Lifetime movies. But since this came out in June 2022, no further installments have appeared. Instead, you get something which is so abrupt, I started to look and see if the copy I was watching had failed to download completely. It’s unfortunate, because until then, it might be the best Lifetime TVM I’ve seen.

That begins with an opening caption: “This program contains strong violence. Viewer discretion is advised.” Ok, we are still talking about strong violence… by the standards of Lifetime TV movies. Do not expect founts of arterial spray and disembowelment. But it does mean that when someone gets their nose broken, there will be some blood. It’s surprising how a little helps there. The nose-breaking is delivered by Hazel King (Harmon), a single mother who runs a diner on the road to Las Vegas, and is fiercely protective of daughter Joy (Richards). So when Joy’s scuzzy boyfriend gives her a black eye, she isn’t standing for that. Or, as she puts it, “He raises a fist, I raise a gun.” Scuzzy boyfriend subsequently vanishes. 

Because, it turns out, Hazel is not just a momma bear, but a former mob assassin, who quit the job years ago. Of course, it isn’t that simple, and eventually her old boss, Von, comes calling. This being a Lifetime TVM, there is inevitably a romantic interest, in the shape of hunky dishwasher (!) and former heart surgeon (!!) Elliott (Polaha). However, this turns out not just to be purely for the obligatory sucking of face. Indeed, it’s integrated with surprising grace, tying in to Joy’s previous, but eventually discarded, ambitions in the medical field. Really, up until the final moments, this was almost indistinguishable from a “real” movie, in terms of plotting. Harmon’s performance, too, is polished and effective.

Never more so than when she’s going after scuzzy boyfriend, where there’s a genuine degree of intensity which I did not expect. I was entirely convinced she was both capable of murdering him, and had every intention of doing so. This all unfolds inside the first twenty minutes and, while we don’t get anything quite as effective thereafter, it makes an excellent impression, and establishes a great deal about Hazel as a character. It’s a real pity that we are now approaching four years since the broadcast of the film in June 2022, and there has not even been a peep about a follow-up. It’s a shame – both in terms of the concept not being developed to its potential, and because this, on its own, deserves to have received a better ending. 

Dir: Howard Deutch
Star: Angie Harmon, Lauren Ashley Richards, Kristoffer Polaha, George Paez

Blood Star

  By

★★
“Neither protecting nor serving.”

I get the idea of what this is trying to do: really, be a female-centric version of The Hitcher. Though to some extent, that franchise went there itself, in The Hitcher II: I’ve Been Waiting. Here, we have Bobbi Torres (Camacho) driving across New Mexico in her sweet muscle car, and when she stops for fuel, has an awkward encounter with Sheriff Bilstein (Schwab). Things get worse when she gets back on the road, and is quickly pulled over by the officer for speeding, which gets her a thousand dollar ticket she is unable to pay. Thanks to a prologue, we know Bilstein has a psychopathic fondness for tormenting and killing young women. This ain’t gonna end well.

It is one of those films where you can tell whether someone is good or evil by their genital configuration. Every man Bobbi meets is evil; every woman we see is part of an unspoken sisterhood. I sense the aim was some kind of riot grrrl agenda, but it manifests itself in some spectacularly clunky ways. There’s one conversation which is especially cringey, Bobbi trading abuse stories with a diner waitress, Amy (Brumfield). It ends in a manner that is clearly intended to be shocking, but I was more relieved the pair had simply stopped spitting out clichés. And I am fairly sure that getting jabbed with a syringe does not typically result in instinct heroin addiction, as alleged here. 

Nor does it help that Bobbi isn’t very likeable, the script mistaking smart-ass and mouthy as endearing. Schwab does better as the authority figure, exuding menace with every sentence. Though despite sharing a fondness for toying with his victim, the Sheriff is inevitably nowhere near as memorable as Rutger Hauer’s mythical road warrior. The agenda here is less interesting as well: I’ve seen a few reviews which compare this to the Wolf Creek movie, and I’d not argue – in part because I didn’t like that Australian road-slasher very much either [the TV series, however, is worth a look] The scales here are tipped considerably in favour of torture porn (albeit more mental than physical), with the inevitable explosion of Bobbi limited to the final fifteen minutes. 

There are some positives to be found, such as the impressively sparse desert landscapes (looks like California played the part of New Mexico), and Bobbi’s car, a 1977 Ford Mustang, which arguably has more personality than its driver. There’s a plot point established about it having a balky starter motor, but I don’t recall this being as crucial as I expected. I did like the sense anyone could die at any time, with a couple of deaths out of nowhere. It needs a heroine who is considerably more aggressive, except verbally, in the first half. Bobbi ends up being too passive for too long in the face of the Sheriff’s obvious threat, which belies the strong, confident woman the script wants her to be.

Dir: Lawrence Jacomelli
Star: Britni Camacho, John Schwab, Sydney Brumfield, Travis Lincoln Cox

Bandit Queen (1950)

  By

★★★
“Whip it good.”

There can’t be many Westerns of the fifties where the Yankees are the bad guys. Yet here we are. In mid-19th century California, to be precise, just after it became part of the US. The new owners enthusiastically threw the existing, Mexican inhabitants off their lands, in the search for gold, using harsh taxation as a weapon against them. And worse, if this is to be believed. For it begins with the callous murder of the Montalvo family, but the legalized thugs responsible don’t realize daughter Zara (Britton) has survived. She takes on two false identities out of necessity: white girl Lola Belmont for Detroit, but also Zara, masked, whip-wieldiing outlaw. As the latter, she seeks justice for her parents, and also “Robin Hoods” the stolen gold back to its rightful owners.

There’s another outlaw, Carlos del Rio, a.k.a. Joaquin Murietta (Reed), also operating along similar lines. But also complicating matters is the local tycoon for whom “Lola” falls, Dan Hinsdale (Parker). Because it turns out his wealth largely stems from being the acceptable face of these legalized thugs. When Murietta is captured, it’s Zara who has to break him out, and the pair them team up, both romantically and in their causes. Their predations have caused enough problems to merit the army getting called in, but there’s also a movement to repeal the tax laws at the heart of the land grabs: which will succeed in their goal first?

It’s obviously a feminine knock-off of Zorro, to the extent in Germany it was released as Zorro’s Daughter. Given the obviously Hispanic leanings, it’s a shame the players involved are so thoroughly and obviously non-Hispanic. The honourable exception is Garralaga as local priest Father Antonio, who for much of the film is the only person to know the truth about both Zara and Joaquin. I wouldn’t expect too much from the heroine here: riding a horse and cracking a whip is about the limit of the on-screen action. Though she is responsible for the (off-screen) deaths of those present when her parents were killed, and does shoot the big villain in the final showdown. If unconvincing as a Mexican, Britton has a righteous intensity about the situation that is effective, and held my interest throughout. 

She is certainly more interesting than Parker or Reed, who are blandly handsome in the way leading men of the time typically were. Making a bigger impression in the supporting cast is little person actor Angelo Rossitto, whose career spanned sixty years, including both cult classic Freaks and Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome. Running barely over an hour long, this is probably a case where less is more: the narrative is generally slight, but good enough. I particularly enjoyed the heroine switching from Lola to Zara, then back again, in order to free Joaquin without causing suspicion. Despite the obviously low budget, this was not a chore to watch, and is as good as some of the other Zorro-related entries we’ve covered here, such as Zorro’s Black Whip.

Dir: William Berke
Star: Barbara Britton, Willard Parker, Phillip Reed, Martin Garralaga

Bride Hard

  By

★½
“Die Hard at… a wedding?”

Director West certainly knows his way around an action film. He is probably best known for Con Air, but I’m also a fan of his Chinese disaster porn flick, Skyfire, about a volcano-themed holiday resort (guess how that works out?). So, despite the critical drubbing this received, I was hoping this might still be entertaining. Unfortunately, it is not. It’s a comedy-action movie, that manages to fire blanks from both barrels. There is not a shred of originality to be found here. What isn’t stolen here from Die Hard, is ripped off from Bridesmaids – heroine Wilson plays her role like the makers ordered Melissa McCarthy on Temu. Writer Shaina Steinberg should be ashamed for the lazy sloppiness, painfully apparent here.

Sam (Wilson) is a secret agent, a fact which repeatedly interferes in attempts to reconnect with childhood friend Betsy (Camp), who is just about to get married. For instance, Sam has to abandon the bachelorette party, in order to recover a bio-weapon. On the day of the wedding itself, Sam is fortuitously away from the wedding party when a group of thieves, led by Dorff, attack the event, take everyone hostage and begin cracking the multiple locks on the family safe. But they are not just ordinary thieves, and Sam is the only hope to neutralize them. Sound just slightly familiar? That noise you hear is Steven de Souza preparing his demand for a screenwriting credit.

On the other hand, having seen the end product, I would sue to get my name taken off this heap of nonsense. I kept going back and forth as to which element was less effective: the comedy or the action. In the end, I would have to say the former, because I don’t think I cracked a single smile over the entire hour and three quarters. The characters are of the sort intended to be “larger than life”, but in this case, it means gratingly annoying. Sam wasn’t the worst to be fair. There are others here, whose company I would gnaw my own leg off to escape from, if I ever met them in the real world. Again, I put the blame for these failures, squarely on the shoulders of the script.

The action is not much better, with it being painfully obvious that Wilson needed to be doubled for any scene requiring speed, strength or flexibility. Basically, anything more than standing about – possibly stretching to swinging something like a fire-hose around for a few seconds. Why they couldn’t cast someone semi-plausible in the role escapes me. Spy did a far better job with the similarly plus-sized McCarthy. It all builds to… um, some kind of chase scene involving hovercrafts laden with gold bullion? To be honest, my attention was drifting elsewhere during the action climax, which is a savage indictment of its shortcomings. If the action heroine genre is struggling at the box-office, this kind of garbage is the reason why.

Dir: Simon West
Star: Rebel Wilson, Anna Camp, Stephen Dorff, Anna Chlumsky