[yasr_overall_rating]
A woman fights to protect her family during a home invasion.
Gabrielle Union has become pretty good at mastering roles in which she plays a strong female figure who teaches others not to underestimate her. Whether it is in a personal or public relationship, she quickly establishes that she is a force to be reckoned with. In this film, a bad relationship with Shaun Russell’s (Gabrielle Union) father Isaac (Damien Leake) seems to be a well-known fact amongst her husband, Justin (Jason George) and children Jasmine (Ajiona Alexus) and Glover (Seth Banee Carr), and when Isaac dies suddenly and she must take care of his affairs, her family is immediately sympathetic to her angst. A trip with the kids down to his sprawling compound to meet with the realtor, Maggie Harris (Christa Miller), to discuss selling the property, turns into a nightmare after villains who have planned to relieve the property of some illegally-obtained funds, end up, unbeknownst to her, being in the house when she arrives.
As a quiet game of cat and mouse ensues between Shaun and one of the villains outside, Peter(Mark Furze), she immediately outsmarts him and when he tries to convince her that he is the only one who can save her, she knocks him over the head and hogties him. When he comes to, she forces him to give up some information regarding his accomplices and then she leaves him for dead after he tries to get the upper-hand once again. When she returns to the house, she comes up with a plan to lure the remaining three away from her kids and when she sees Maggie drive up, she thinks she possibly has a chance until Maggie, who doesn’t move fast enough after she senses something wrong, becomes the villains’ next victim. The action starts becoming intense as the roles of the remaining three villains are defined…one is the laidback Leader Eddie (Billy Burke), who thinks he has it all figured out, the second is Duncan (Richard Cabral), a hothead who can’t wait to slice and dice someone, and the third is Sam (Levi Meaden), a squeamish, emotional do-gooder who swears he’s not in it to hurt anyone. Just like the three stooges, these God-awful losers don’t have enough wit or savvy to outsmart Shaun who is seemingly beating them at their own game, and they’re constantly clashing with one another while they wait for her to sacrifice all for the sake of saving her kids. The hits and misses continue as Shaun’s husband Justin becomes the next victim and he is knocked out while trying to get in to save his family, then one by one, Shaun tackles the victims and just when it seems as she isn’t going to make it out alive, she gets just enough adrenalin to take another villain down for the count. When she gets into what is seemingly the final duel, the previous victims make a comeback and as the slice and dicer takes the Leader out of his misery, the do-gooder takes a turn for the worst and Shaun comes out scathed, yet victorious.
Director James McTeigue did a great job of building profiles for each of the villains as they waged war against Shaun and each other. The suspense, adventure, and drama of this Will Packer production kept the audience at the edge of their seats while females and mothers, as a whole, gained leverage throughout the film for Shaun’s impenetrable courage, wit and willfully-understated, ass-kicking abilities. Long story short, Shaun slayed while dissecting her enemies into ridiculously brawny, outwitted pieces of garbage that could never come between a mother and her children!
In theaters Friday, May 11th
