It's a movie about love, disrespect, revenge, anger, violence, peace, travel, clothing, guns, knives, police, criminals, bras, concertina wire, hospitals, cheap cars, trucks, Hispanic children, threats, sex, investigations, zip lines, terrorist threats, punching, kicking, choke holds, bruises, scrapes, dresses, dancing, security cameras, bad shooting, expert shooting, hostages, kisses, and Spanish.
Gina Carano is a genuine MMA fighter whose style is Muay Thai, which isn't odd to see Tony Ja doing in one of his (usually terrible) movies about a guy who comes from a small town and ultimately beats the crap out of everyone who is living uncleanly in the big city. Gina is a pretty enough woman, and she certainly holds her own in the action scenes, but the camera doesn't catch enough of it, and the editing confuses things needlessly. Her acting is wooden, but you can't fault her too much for that - her character is a confused, abused stoic, and that would be hard for a very good actor to pull off.
Stephen Lang plays her father in flashbacks. He was the one to taught her how to handle herself, and he has some pretty good lines like, "Winners get scars. Losers get funerals." He doesn't do much more than yell at her and beat her up, so acting wasn't really called for. Likewise, Treat Williams exists as Gina's new father-in-law to show up, be grumpy, and go away. No real acting required.
Cam Gigandet is the husband who spends a good majority of the movie not being there. Even when he's on screen, he doesn't have a whole lot to do. He's the damsel in distress for Gina to rescue. Danny Trejo arrived on set to shoot for two days and collect a fat paycheck before moving on to the next direct-to-DVD movie.
Amaury Nolasco probably has the second most lines in this movie. He's a local gangster who Gina comes up against in the process of trying to find out what happened to her husband. His character is written pretty terribly. All of the dialog that he has is slapped together and doesn't make a whole heap of sense.
Really, the only one to counterpoint Gina's character is Luis Guzmán as the local police chief. He is loosely concerned with Gina's loss, but he seems more intent on prosecuting Gina for her overly aggressive pursuit of the bad guys. He does most of the acting for the movie.
Direction was not great
Editing was bad
Acting was mediocre
Story was okay
Dialog was pretty bad
Action was very good
1.75/5