In the Blood (2014)

In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.

Good films always raise compelling questions, whether the format is fiction or documentary fact.

I didn’t really have many expectations going into the movie (good or bad), but I actually really enjoyed it. I really liked the characters and the banter between them.

An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

6/22/18. Expect plenty of action when Carano takes no prisoners. Imagine having a wife like this - guys, no need to worry about anything. Plays to the fears we all have of having things go wrong while vacationing in a country where you don't know the language.

Of course the highlights of the film are the action sequences. The brief moments where we get to dismiss the abomination of a plot and watch Gina kick some butt.The film has some MAJOR problems. You get the feeling as a viewer that the film crew threw-together this plot on the fly. Like they didn't know where to go with it.The film starts-off with some bad acting, a really cheesy 80's montage love video(ala "Streets of Fire" only placed in a bad movie making it worse instead in a really good movie making it only above average for SOF). Really bad start.Gina can't act. Let's face it - she can't. Her character is just so void of emotion - especially considering what she's gone through. The only person that kicks Gina's butt in this film is the younger actress who's playing her younger self in some flashback scenes.. at least I can tell when she's upset.This kinda reminds me of "Falcon Rising"... I gave both films a 4/10, but this is probably closer to a 5 than FR was. The production values here are certainly better. Like FR, In The Blood is shot in a beautiful location. This film looks great BUT.It's total nonsense. The actions of the characters are ridiculous, and again the plot was written by a pre-kindergartner. It's full of laugh-off loud moments that weren't meant to be funny.How could so many directors in the 80's get the formula right? Not trying to do too much with the plot, so as to not detract from the action, or not throw in the plot like it was a complete after- thought an hour into the film?(the case here) I mean it literally feels like the production stopped and they decided on the fly 'why' the husband had been taken. They had no idea until that moment. Like it or not. If the reason was actually put to paper and this was actually scripted in advance then I apologize, but the writer should still bit put out of our and their misery.Very little works here. The highlight of the whole film is a barfight in the first third, after that, it's all downhill. THey could have used the scene to drive the plot, but instead, the writers and director got drunk and went into lala-land for the films final hour.Gina still deserves some props because she can certainly pull-off the action stuff better than just about any chick in the biz, but the aimless, silly plot, and the lack of emotion here sink this ship. I dialed up Falcon Rising and In The Blood because I wanted a mindless action flick - i just didn't want them THAT mindless.I'd pass. If you want some action flicks of the last decade that do it right(many sleepers and low-budget too) - i'd check out these first: The Man From Nowhere(subt), Elite Squad 2:The Enemy Within(subt), Running Scared, John Wick, Jack Reacher, Olympus Has Fallen, Dredd, IPman1&2(subt), Point Blank(subt), True Legend(subt), Shoot'em Up, Rampage, SHooter, Purge:Anarchy, 3 Days to Kill, Oldboy(remake), Homefront, 2 Guns, Raid1&2, Hanna, Never Back Down, Parker, The Mechanic, SNitch, From Paris With Love.... ...all those are significantly better than this junk and many of those have similar budget constraints.

Possibly the best female action star of our times, along with Zoe Bell, Gina Carano deserves a better vehicle than "In The Blood". It's true that in this movie you get to see a lot of Gina's fantastic body (I envy the woman who was lucky enough to get knocked out in Gina's sleeper hold - just look at her biceps and you'll know why), but it has a lot of problems: the editing is often amateurish, the cinematography is sometimes poor (although the locations are beautiful), the kidnapping story is very standard, there is practically only ONE real fight scene in the entire movie (all the rest are quick beatdowns by Gina on opponents who don't stand a chance - I hope they won't turn her into the female Steven Seagal), and the excessively cruel edge of Gina's character (she perpetrates a lot more violence than the villains) makes it hard to root for her as much as we should. Danny Trejo is on the DVD cover but he appears in no more than four scenes in total. ** out of 4.

"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 plot lines 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. In "In the blood" 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 each other 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 still looks like 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.More reviews at http://opinion-as-a-moviefreak.blogspot.be