A little bit more from Gina Carano. If you
thought she was tough in In the Blood, this makes her seem like a wuss in
that. She stares down wolves, survives a huge car crash, the car exploding,
falls through the ice of a lake, falls into an ice waterfall from a hundred
feet up and beats the hell out of poor Richard Dreyfuss. I mean who could
beat up Richard Dreyfuss? As an old man? Why the hell did he get into this
film? Alimony? One of our most charming urbane actors plays the head of a
family of cretins, each worse than the other - teeth that look as rotten
as their hearts, products of generations of incest in the wilderness. Brought
up to do the bidding of an insane and cruel "Father". Dreyfuss is as evil
as an illegal kidney extraction and plays it to the hilt. Probably fun for
him. When she beats him up he more than deserves it. Hit him again. Worse
is to come.
This starts out like it will be a rip-off of Taken with a gender and location
change - but then moves into Jack London territory - the Call of the Wild
or To Build a Fire - survival in the freezing unknown. There is certainly
the element of the unbelievable here - lots of it - she is made of steel
- indestructible - but that is what makes this sort of film. A little slow
at times as they trudge through the snow but a good payoff. It doesn't waste
time on setting it up or creating characters - right into it like it is on
fire. Her son has been kidnapped for a ransom and to be sold. Three men come
to collect. She hands over the money, demands her son and then hears one
of them say let's kill her now. Ouch. Never say that out loud. Not to a vet
who has served in Iraq and Afghanistan. Soon two of them are dead and she
is leading the third on a long trek through the snowy freezing wilderness
to where her boy is being kept by Dreyfuss and the other cretins. And the
wolf packs are gathering. Not as high a kill count as In the Blood, but more
bloody and violent. Carano is an ok actress but she is mainly a presence
- hard and solid like an oak tree that can hit back. Beautiful country where
they shot it in British Columbia. May I never go there.
