Following the murder of his daughter, a high school coach takes it upon himself to protect a student who is abused at home. Soon, things turn violent, and he needs to do much more than talk to her stepfather to save her.
Written by Art Camacho, James Dean Simington, and Javier Reyna, with Camacho directing. The film is very much an action film with a plot made to bring forth the action sequences. Of course, a few good values are in there as well as a few lessons, but most folks who will come to this film will be there for the action and the filmmakers know that quite well here. The film is very entertaining and gives that righteous fight vibe with the coach getting to get his sort of revenge on human traffickers and getting his fill of letting them have it throughout the film. The fights are not the only things going on, but when the lead gets to hurt someone, it feels deserved.
The lead here is played by Dermot Mulroney who is very much in his Liam Neeson/Taken phase of his career. He’s been doing a good number of action films lately and this one gives him a story along the lines of Taken even. His work is good in this part, and it feels like this is something we might get more of from him and should enjoy as he does well here. He’s a believable father type, the anger is well portrayed, and his fighting style works for him. It’s not super flashy, it’s not all insane, but it looks like it hurts, and he’s doing it well. Playing the teen, he must save is Melissa Diaz who works that line of teenager who knows it all and teenager who still wants a parent quite well. She even could have had more scenes and would not have been annoying. The rest of the cast comes off interesting or random depending on which character you’re looking at. We get treated to Jeff Fahey doing his bad guy of service. There’s a random appearance by Texas Battle whose character sometimes makes sense, other times feels like he was added to fill in a gap in the story or avoid a plot hole, not fully useful outside of that, and thus not giving the man much to do. The rest of the cast feels a bit interchangeable unfortunately, so not entirely memorable.
On the technical side, the film is well shot and well edited, allowing all the action to be easy to see and enjoy. The film doesn’t really stand out on these fronts, but it seems to know where it needs to be and positions itself exactly there. The fighting is solid and based more on wrestling than martial arts, which goes a bit against what would be expected of an Art Camacho film given the man’s background. The fighting works, it feels like something that would be more likely to happen with a random high school coach than getting a black belt in multiple martial arts. So, this style is what the film needed.
And that’s the thing here, this is a competent film, every department does what the film needs, it’s entertaining, it works. It’s perhaps not the most memorable action film, but it’s also an easy watch and one that can be put on randomly at any time for fans of the director, of the lead, or of mid-range action films. It’s not the most fascinating film, but it’s serviceable in its genre, showing that Camacho does efficient work in the genre.