★★½
“Half-baked”
This is distinctly a film of two halves. The first is undeniably more impressive, taking the revenge motif and going in an interesting, and at least somewhat novel, direction. However, not long after the half-way point, the script decides to change direction radically. This leaves behind the grounded entity which we’ve had so far, in favour of something with distinct supernatural tendencies. I’m not averse to these per se. Yet they’re an ill fit with what has gone before, and need to be integrated considerably better. Then, things derail completely for the finale, pulling things out of nowhere to achieve a solution, in a gobbet of exposition that completely lost my interest. So, probably 3½ stars for the first half, 1½ for the second.
It’s the story of the two titular sisters, Kayden (Arias) and Julie (Bennett) – Americans, but now living in Honduras. So if nothing else here, that’s another country crossed off the action heroine map, with the story unfolding in a mix of Spanish and English. Kayden is married (though I guess, hasn’t changed her surname). Or, rather: she was, until her husband is shot and killed by an intruder, when Kayden is out. The local police are useless, whether through incompetence, laziness or corruption, it’s hard to tell. Kayden decides she’s going to take revenge. There are some problems with this. Firstly, she doesn’t have a gun. Secondly, she doesn’t know who to take revenge against.
It’s here where the film is interesting, because a complete lack of experience isn’t something you see often in the vengeance subgenre. It’s quite striking, along with Julie being the voice of reason, and the film’s strongest scene is probably when the sisters are negotiating for a gun with a local dealer. They’re utterly out of their depth, and I was looking forward to seeing how this might all play out. How would they find the target? The answer? A seance with local shaman Miguel (Lagos). Betcha didn’t see that coming. He’s not even particularly helpful, beyond suggesting that Kayden might actually still be in danger. It takes the instigator – and it’s someone I think we’d barely seen, if at all – to show up at Kayden’s house and explain everything.
While the occult stuff was certainly unexpected, and doesn’t really serve a significant purpose, it was at least entertaining, and Lagos makes for a creepy psychic. Admittedly, digging up the corpse of her dead husband to retrieve his wedding ring was… a bit of a stretch. Still, it’s the final section which truly sinks the film, triggering one of the biggest cases of, “Is that it? Really?” I’ve suffered over the past couple of years. None of it made sense, especially in the light of Kayden’s earlier and unchallenged proclamation that nobody knew her late spouse better than her. When a film has to lie to the viewer like that, it loses almost all credibility. Turn this off after a hour, trust me on that.
Dir: The Valle Brothers
Star: Silvana Arias, Melany Bennett, Edwin Lagos, Sheyla Downing