In The Blood (2014)
Genre: Action
Who's In It: Gina Carano, Cam Gigandet, Ismael Cruz Cordova, Danny Trejo, Luis Guzman, Amaury Nolaslo, Stephan Lang, Treat Williams
Who Directed It: John Stockwell
Plot: 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.
Run Time: 1 Hour 48 Minutes
IMDB Score:5.7
Metascore: 40
Why I Watched It: Mostly the cast.
How I Watched It: Tubi
Random Thoughts: Boy that is a boring ass poster, I mean at least try a little. Also poor Cam Gigandent isn't even on the poster in name form. He's the missing husband. That plot description goes very well with the poster. Cliched on both counts and tells you nothing.
This took me a long ass time to watch it, one of the things was finding it streaming. So it took almost ten years and watching it on Tubi to finally see the damn thing, no it wasn't worth the wait.
Also this was the movie where we figured out Gina Carano was not going to be a mainstream action star, at least as a lead, she's had a good career in made for DVD/streaming though and I've seen a couple of them.
What I Liked: John Stockwell is a very good genre director, he usually makes a very watchable and different B-Movie. If you love genre you know him if you don't go check his IMDB he's had a fun career. Of course I've seen a bunch of his films. Here he's made another on paper by the numbers action movie but with soime quirks, this is an odd film, wouldn't call it good but t's watchable and that is Stockwell's calling card. Now I will warn you about the cast Treat Williams and Stephen Lang are barely in it, both are cameos and Lang is almost blink and you miss him. Which is too bad cause they were half the reason I watched the film.
The action or shall I say violence is more brutal and gritty then slick and fun which also surprised be. I thought this would be a slight but fun action but it's a lot darker and not as much fun as you would have hoped. Now I put this in the like section because at least they did something different, they kind of zigged when you though that would zag. The acting is a mixed bag but I did like they kind of tried to flesh out characters Luis Guzman is good here, heck he's always good, granted he should be in a different movie cause his arc is very unexpected. Carrano is not a great actor but she does have presence and of course she's believable action wise. She has the look of an action star just not the acting chops.
The film does go in different directions and there is a character that doesn't go the way you would think, again this movie is trying not to be a cookie cutter action film and at times it does succeed.
What I Didn't Like: My two things that screw up a movie for me is tone and pacing and this film does crap the bed in both areas. Pacing wise this film drags and it's way too long. Tone wise it's a mess, there's like two films at play here and they keep butting heads, this film is too goofy to be a hard hitting action film and it's also too brutal and at times mean to be fun. The tones shifts really make it an odd watch. Now it's not a terrible thing but it does make the film lose it's flow. This film does stop start a few times.
Now I say this as someone who doesn't mind Gina Carano, I do find her charming but she's a bit over her head here. She's asked to do some heavy lifting acting wise and she kind of falls short. She's good with the action but I'll be honest for here there's just as much drama as there is action. They really could have used Lang and Williams to have bigger parts to help out. I should also say Trejo is barely in it as well and his character is all over the place. That's the other thing with this film the plot does not go in a straight line and I will say once you find out what's going on it really does feel like we've flipped into another movie. The ending is also weird, and not fun weird like well that's a strange way to end an action movie. The ending drags like crazy could have chopped it in half.
Final Thoughts: Not boring but very uneven and just doesn't really mesh all the way through.
Rating: 5/10










