In the blood (2014)

Summary
When her husband goes missing during their Caribbean vacation, a woman sets off on her own to take down the men she thinks are responsible.

Genre : Action/Crime
Country : UK/Puerto Rico

Cast :
Gina Carano : Ava
Luis Guzmán : Chief Ramón Garza
Danny Trejo : Big Biz

Director : John Stockwell

My Opinion

"When all the bastards are gone and dead, only then rest your head."

Lets hope not too many movie lovers take this movie too seriously otherwise the Dominican Republic will have a serious tourism problem. Who wants to travel to such an idyllic island and ultimately face the local mafia? The tropical paradise photos of this incredibly beautiful island will fade after watching this low-budget action movie. The chance that you'll disappear and end up being used for some seedy business seems not unlikely. So it's advisable to avoid this extremely dangerous island and put your mind on some other tropical island. The local Dominican population won't be concerned, but the tourism industry will lick its wounds. Just kidding, I don't think it's not gonna rock the boat !

"In the blood" could only convince me in a moderate way until the denouement took such absurd proportions that it was hugely laughable. I am more inclined to believe the advertisement in which two barrels of cheap washing powder are being exchanged with that of a cheaper brand. This was just a hodgepodge of poor plotlines and probably some poor ideas that were shrugged off by others filmmakers. At the time Danny Trejo (Can anyone tell me in which movie he doesn't appear ?) pops up, the chance of this being a lousy B-action movie becomes huge. And when you realize that there are still films where Trejo occurs in, which are way better than this one , there's clearly something wrong with this film.

Gina Carano, a famous MMA fighter, is back in action. Her performance as Mallory Kane in "Haywire" is still fresh in my memory, and the only thing I can remember is that it was a kind of "Bourne Identity" film. For the rest it wasn't that special. Carano is a skilled practitioner of mixed martial arts and has a sensual beauty. That's a fact. On the other hand she also acts in a stiff manner, which is mostly compensated by using a specific positioning of the camera in the film process, which ensures her lascivious formed body parts being clearly visualized, just to cover up this issue. She plays Ava, a reformed drug addict, who's on a honeymoon in the Caribbean with her new husband Derek. He's also a former drug addict and they've met in rehab. Everything seems rosy, as witnessed by the vivid images of sheer love. However, sometimes you get the feeling that the two are strangers to eachother while watching the sunset. The chemistry between the two is sometimes hard to find. The moment Ava demonstrates her techniques, taught by her father so she could defend herself, in a nightclub where she fights like a real fury, Derek looks at it with amazement and probably wonders who he's married to. Pretty unlikely.

However, everything goes awry when Derek falls into an abyss during ziplining, getting seriously injured. Fortunately, his cell phone miraculously survives the terrible fall. He's picked up by an ambulance and obviously Ava can't join the ride because of some insurance rules. Afterwards she comes to the conclusion that her husband is nowhere to be found and apparently wasn't admitted to any hospital. In short, Derek disappeared. And the candidate suspects are lining up. Smooth young Manny (Ismael Cruz Cordova) who volunteered to show the island, the instructor at the zip-line, the local criminal Big Biz (Danny Trejo), the skeptical police chief Ramon Garza (Luis Guzman) and even her father in law are all potential suspects. Because Ava can't count on any sympathy, plus nobody is willing to organize a serious search for Derek and last but not least she's also taken into custody, she decides to take matters into her own hands and starts a personal quest to find Derek.

The fact that bodies are piling up as she progresses in this research isn't annoying. Ultimately that's what everybody is waiting for. A seemingly fragile woman who's sweeping the floor in a fairly heavy-handed way with all kinds of scum. However, in most cases the portrayal isn't very original and sublime. The only fight scene worth to watch was the one in the nightclub. The following confrontations are rather dull and laughable implausible. Only Luis Guzman, also someone who has a long list of meaningless performances in all sorts of films such as in "We're the Millers", could really convince me in terms of acting (Mind you,compared to others in this particular movie only). Trejo's only quality is portraying a bad-ass, which isn't so difficult to achieve with his appearance. And Amaury Nolasco is someone who, after his appearance in "Prison Break" and recently in "Animal", tries to look like a bad-ass, but judging from the scene in the small village at the end, he's still a harmless wimp.

The final revelation of how it all fits together, at the same time reflecting the double meaning of the title, is of such a low level that I'm sure that the screenwriters spent more time in the salty water then at the writing table at that point . Are you someone who loves seeing a fragile-looking wench slapping around a notorious gang of muscular-looking bullies, then you'll enjoy yourself with this one. However, it's advisable to take a stimulating pill in order to survive the outrageous bad last 15 minutes.