User reviews

When Ava (Gina Carano) meets Derek Grant (Cam Gigandet), they fall in love and marry with each other under the protest of his wealthy father Robert Grant (Treat Williams) that believes Ava is a gold digger. Ava had a tough childhood with her abusive father Casey (Stephen Lang) that trained her in martial arts and other fights. Ava and Derek travel to Caribe in honeymoon and soon they meet the local Manny (Ismael Cruz Cordova) that invites them to go to a fashion night club. The powerful gangster Big Biz (Danny Trejo) hits on Ava and Derek and she fight with his minions. On the next morning, Manny takes them to a tyrolean crossing but out of the blue, Derek has a problem with his gear and falls off in a valley, breaking his leg. Ava finds him and an ambulance takes Derek to a local clinic. Ava follows the ambulance in Manny´s motorcycle but crashes and loses the sight the ambulance. When she goes to the clinic, she does not find Derek. She goes to the police station and Chief Ramón Garza (Luis Guzmán) promises to help her. But soon Ava discovers that there is a conspiracy and decides to look for her beloved husband alone.

"In the Blood" Is a full of action film where the greatest attraction is Gina Carano. She proves to be an excellent action hero. The flawed story has many plot holes but is highly entertaining. The motives for the abduction and the accident of Derek Grant is messy and does not make sense. The beginning is promising but the conclusion is the weak part of the plot. My vote is six.

Title (Brazil): "Sangue na Veia" ("Blood in the Vein")

One of Gina's best. Well acted, ans good cast. Only a few holes that didn't make sense but overall pretty decent!

Gina is one rare girl who manages to look cute and savage at the same time. And given the recent debacle she has managed to stay strong and true to her nature. And she really is one strong woman not like the airy heads who think they are strong just because some movie portrays them to be. Wishing her luck and looking forward to more of her movies.

I am impressed with the thoughtful actions of Gina Carano. I feel I have found a new and fantastic female hero. I hope there will be more to come from her. What is it with Danny Trejo? He is in every other movie these days.

Gina Carano has strength and power in her punches and isn't taking "NO" for an answer as she goes thru every detail and menace to find what she's looking for. Her character has heart and soul and responds vigilantly. I am happy finally to see a woman take the reins. Gina Carano GO!

The plot however is too thick perhaps to understand and one gets greatly lost yet the determination of Gina Carano's character (Ava) removes doubt that this film might fall over. Only the bad guys drop dead!

I really enjoyed the story, the set-up, with the family dynamic between grooms father and his son. Interesting twists and turns, great action and realism. The club scene was terrific and the fight sequences well done. The mountain scenery was stunning and the zip line scenes, freaked me out. Gina's acting continues to improve with every project. The slow build of frustration and emotional hopelessness was wonderfully portrayed.

I would have liked to see a bit more character development and dialog. Derek's father and sister needed more lines to show the turmoil of doubt that Derek's father had towards Ava.

Watched it on Direct TV and started the movie very late. I could have paused the movie and come the next day to finish viewing it but I couldn't - I was hooked.

Loved it - heart pounding suspense.

If you've done everything possible on your bucket list, and are waiting around with nothing to do with your time before you die, watch this movie.

There's as much wooden acting as Commando, but without the muscles. The story sucks, which is disappointing as it's ripped from others before yet still can't learn from any of those and make a decent go of it.

Characterisation is appallingly poor. I'm not sure what the director was doing but clearly his focus had nothing to do with the characters and their acting in each scene. Maybe he was elsewhere on another movie at the time? It certainly comes across like it.

Overall I found it wanting in every cinematic aspect - few redeeming qualities with which to call it a feature film. Other than length - they spin this out to the thick end of two hours. There's lots of killing and blood, however. And quite a bit of fighting, though boringly captured. Some others have mentioned MMA in their reviews. My view - forget martial arts here, the acronym in this effort stands for Mostly Mangled Acting.

A good waste of time if you generally feel better about yourself from laughing at D grade movies.

I like Gina Carano as an action hero. I think she has what it takes. she's fun to look at, especially when she does those MMA fighting movies to beat up the bad guys. Watching her crush a man's skull in-between her thighs is sexy, without her even trying to be sexy.

The movie is about a woman with a checkered past getting her life together by marrying the love of her life, who suddenly becomes endangered thanks to the local bad dudes who put a wretch in their honeymoon and because the cops are unwilling to help she seeks vengeance on her own. Sounds like every other action film out their right? but that's perfect to show us what Gina can really do as an action hero and she delivers. What makes the movie interesting is using a small Caribbean island as the back drop adding some new flavor to a typical slab of Beef that an action film can be. Of course what makes the movie bad ass is having Mr. Bad Ass himself, Danny Trejo in the film. This guy adds 25% to any B-action film.

I honest thought Haywire would have done more for her career other than just being The Rock's partner in the ensemble cast that is the Fast and The Furious 6. The world could use a few more female driven action movies other than the Resident Evil or Underworld franchise. Who cares if she could use a few more acting lessons, we let Chuck Norris get away with it. Then again, Chuck Norris let's us get away with living.

Highly recommended for anyone who loves a good action film.

As far as the movie Taken, I would rate a 9. I would rate this movie a 7. The reason i compare these two is because of the premise of the movie.

Despite the lead role being played by an actress who is still learning to act, the movie is entertaining with some unexpected twists.

Remember that the lead actress is an actual female MMA Champion. She's well fit for a role like this, but not quite ready for Academy Awards. She's somewhat like a very attractive female version of Arnold Schwarzennager. Arnold wasn't the greatest actor when he first started acting. He was a Body Builder who played flat characters and over time became a much better actor. Most of his early success was due to his accent and one liners. If you notice, his acting has much improved in his role in "The Escape Plan". Who doesn't remember some famous Arnie quotes? I hated the movie Haywire, and even turned it off early on. I was hesitant to watch this movie due to bad reviews and worrying about how bad the acting would be.

I'd say that this movie is a good B movie. A lot of what makes the movie is how believable the main actress is at actually being able to kill someone. The rest of the cast surrounding her make it much more watchable. This is a movie where its best to shut off your brain, and enjoy some interesting and compelling action sequences.

While the movie is definitely far from reality, it was never supposed to be realistic. The movie lacks comedic relief, which drags it down a bit, but you feel drawn in and forget about your day's worries when watching it.

The point of a movie is to entertain. Did this movie entertain me? Absolutely. I wasn't bored at any point in watching the movie, I would watch it again with a friend when I'm in the mood.

While the movie is quite predictable, there are some scenes I didn't expect. I wouldn't take an under-ager to see this movie, nor a hot date, but you can enjoy this movie with people who enjoy action flicks.

The movie is not nearly as bad as the rating it received. The movie isn't one of my top 50, but it is for sure worth a watch or two.

If you plan to watch this movie, please do yourself a favor and shut off your brain and enjoy it for what it is.

While the main actress is far from the best actress, she has improved somewhat since her role in Haywire. She has potential to become a better actress.

There are definitely some disturbing scenes. If you don't like extremely violent and dark action movies, this movie is not for you.

If it wasn't for being able to enjoy this movie because of the reasons I listed, I would rate it a 4/10. The unique action scenes and interesting characters make up for the mediocre acting. The movie ends well, but I won't ruin the ending for anyone.

This film has the distinct low-budget look. Maybe it's how they don't blur the backgrounds when people are in foreground, I don't know, but it looks cheaper than a TV show.

The star, a real-life MMA fighter, is not given decent choreography to show off her athleticism. That is perhaps the movie's biggest sin.

Her voice-over is not convincing in the slightest, like she's reading it off a napkin. That is unfortunate, as it destroys the movie from its very first minutes.

Those first minutes are shortly followed by some very awkward expository dialogue at a wedding. Everything is awkward.

Avoid.

'IN THE BLOOD': Three and a Half Stars (Out of Five)

MMA fighter turned action movie star Gina Carano plays the lead in this crime thriller directed by John Stockwell (who's directed other popular B movies like 'BLUE CRUSH' and 'INTO THE BLUE'). It was written by James Robert Johnston and Bennett Yellin (the duo also wrote the horror movie sequel 'JOY RIDE 2: DEAD AHEAD') and tells the story of a recently married woman, with a violent past, who's husband goes missing on the couple's Caribbean honeymoon (after he has a freak zip-lining accident). It costars Cam Gigandet, Luis Guzman, Danny Trejo, Amaury Nolasco, Stephen Lang, Treat Williams and Ismael Cruz Cordova. It's not as good as Carano's first venture into leading lady action flick status ('HAYWIRE') but it is surprisingly well made and effective.

Carano plays Ava, a skilled fighter who was raised to be an emotionless killing machine, by her abusive father (Lang). With her marriage to Derek (Gigandet) she's hoping to leave that life behind but it of course haunts her once again, when the couple goes honeymooning in the Caribbean. First they get into a bar fight with a local crime boss, named Big Biz (Trejo), and his men. Then Derek has an accident, while the two are zip-lining, and goes missing on his way to the hospital. Ava will stop at nothing to find out what happened to him; even when the police, lead by Chief Ramon Garza (Guzman), are useless.

The movie is surprisingly intense and brutally violent. It's well written (for a B movie), with plenty of surprising twists, and decently directed too, by Stockwell. The cast is all impressive (for a film like this) especially Carano though. I'm really interested in seeing her continue to pursue this action movie career and I think she's off to a great start. Her part in 'FAST & FURIOUS 6' was a bit too small (and wasted her talents) but with this flick, and 'HAYWIRE', I think she's really making a name for herself (as an action movie star). It would have been really cool to see her play Wonder Woman, in the upcoming 'JUSTICE LEAGUE' franchise, she's already dating Superman (Henry Cavill)!

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Despite not really having been taken by Gina Carano's previous film, I decided to give this one a try as I thought that maybe a simpler and more stripped down film may suit her better – she is essentially a b- movie star in the making, so I was interested to see her let loose in a much more genre vehicle where the film would have no interest but to play to her strengths. Any doubts that I may have had that the film would not be a b-movie were dispelled pretty quickly as the film wheeled out the plot with no real effort to fill in backstory beyond one flashback sequences then lots of clunking dialogue to inform us the husband is from a wealthy family and other bits of information. So far so good (in a twisted way) as I assumed we were just clearing stuff out of the way to make more room for tension and action.

Unfortunately this is the tone for the whole film – clunkiness. The plot sees her husband go missing and, with no help from authorities and far from home, Carano has to take matters into her own hands. This she does and the end result is perhaps a few good fight scenes but generally the film lacks tension and (ironically) real impact. I was bored for too much of the film and when the action did splutter into life, it seemed determined not to build any drama and instead left it to the tough presence of the lead to do the heavy lifting. She does this to a point but she needed help that never came and it is a shame to see that she still really hasn't had the chance to turn herself into the female star for the audience that still turns out for Van Damme etc films.

The location and the nature of the film looks a bit too low-rent and this isn't helped by how detached I was from the action. Beyond Carano the cast are an odd mix of so-so turns from people you don't know, but bored ones from people you do. Gigandet seems uneasy with his damsel in distress role and doesn't know who he is. Trejo, Williams and Guzmán feel like they were cast for their names and faces and in return get a bit of a holiday shooting in a nice climate. Nolasco is a decent villain but not made the most of.

If you are in an undemanding mood then maybe this film has enough to distract you for a while, but personally I found it disappointing. The running time plods by and a plot that should be fuelled by desperation and violence is really slowed down too much and action sequences can of "happen" rather than being the result of a strong build up and delivery. Carano is physically impressive and is a decent presence if you don't ask too much from her – I'm still hoping someone can make better use of her than they have so far.

Gina Carano, a top person and amazing MMA fighter. Too bad she was unable to translate this onto the big screen. Love her personality but not her films. Her acting has improved but its not good enough.

At times Gina carries the look as though shes ready for an MMA fight.

Storyline of the movie is simple and boring. Wife gets married, husband goes missing. Wife goes after the men that have taken her husband. Sounds like a rip off of Taken.

The good? Of course Gina's fighting does give the film some light. Her MMA moves are always good to watch. Even though it is highly unrealistic to do a BJJ takedown in a nightclub.

I think Gina should hold off on leading roles and take supporting roles instead to give her experience before taking on a leading role.

Decent acting, good action scenes and surprise a decent script with some nice twists.

Sit back and enjoy

First off, the only reason I did not give it a 1 was because I am a fan of action movies and martial arts. The action was good but not as good as some reviews before me. The movie is an hour and 47 minutes, it took me 3 hours to watch it because it just was not interesting enough so I took breaks to play candy crush.I'm not a critic and have been known to watch some movies on here with ratings lower than a 5 and have loved them. For this movie to get above a 4 is amazing. Her acting is horrific. Oh but wait, she looks good. That'll do it. I didn't see the negative review till after I watched the movie.Well I guess its too late now. Did I mention her acting was HORRIBLE...... like WOW.

I'll be honest about this film, I am NOT a big action film fan nor do I like ultra-violent films. In the Blood is clearly BOTH of these— especially the latter. The amazing thing is that although the violence made me cringe, it was also a movie that kept me glued to the screen...and my adrenalin pumping!

The film stars Gina Carano and if you've never heard of Miss Carano, I wouldn't be surprised. She's only done a few films, though she is famous…as an MMA and Muay Thai fighter!! And, as you'd expect from a woman with such training, her skills are INSANELY good. Heck, she seems tougher and more capable than all the male action stars of the genre—and she makes it all look so real! By comparison, films by Van Damme and Steven Seagal look like kids' films!!! I also love Carano because although she is pretty, she's NOT the Hollywood type. She has real curves and looks like she's NOT the product of plastic surgery and bulimia!!

The film is set on some fictional Spanish-speaking Caribbean nation or, perhaps, they intend it to be the Dominican Republic (there are three Spanish-speaking countries in the Caribbean—and it's not Cuba and they said it wasn't Puerto Rico in the movie*)—they never say. Regardless, the place is corrupt…very, very, very corrupt. It's so corrupt that when an American tourist is kidnapped (or possibly killed), those responsible for it pay EVERYONE to pretend it never happened—even the cops! So, this leaves Ana (Carano) all alone in a hostile country where practically no one seems able or willing to help. The neat thing about the film is that it is wonderful at misdirection. It's a very smart film as again and again I was surprised by who was behind all this and why. And, how it all ends is simply impossible to anticipate**.

Overall, this is a super-high action film with an amazing heroine—one that doesn't stand around waiting to be saved by a man—and I love that. Carano plays the real thing—and action hero in every sense of the word— and a darn scary one!!

So do I recommend the film? Well, I don't know. Its violence level is off the charts and it's certainly NOT a film for the kids, your mother or Father Flannigan! Plus, even if you THINK you like action films, you might just find this one too intense, bloody and violent. Often, Ana kills—much like Sonny Chiba did in his Street Fighter films. But aside from the violence, it's an exceptional film all around. Heck, even NOW after the movie's been over for some time, my heart is STILL pounding… it's that intense and that well made.

*They said the film is NOT set in Puerto Rico and talked about how they can escape to the nearby island of Puerto Rico. But, in reality, the film was actually made in Puerto Rico. I don't know what this will do for tourism!

**If you SERIOUSLY anticipated all the twists, turns and surprises in this film, drop me a line. You are DEFINITELY psychic and I want to talk to you about the Florida Lottery.

Great cast and good performances across the board. You gotta love a movie with Danny Trejo, Luis Guzman together, and who always bring the action level up a notch. But of course this is a Gina Carano vehicle and she delivers the stuff. Great in action, and believable in the role of loving wife who will stop at nothing to protect herself and her husband. I loved her in Haywire, so I checked this one out for the first time here. Star quality is no stretch for her, she's got the tuff side and sexy side chops seemingly without much effort. Cam Gigandet is good as the husband in trouble, and along with Amaury Norlesco good as the psychopathic bad-ass. Nice photography and island locations. I can't crucial the plot like some, I felt it was adequately directed, and some twists keep you intrigued to the end. 👍👍in honor of Siskel & Ebert...not an award winner, but an enjoyable action flick.

After reading the other reviews i can tell they either like crap films or they are something to do with the production or advertisement of this stinker..and to say this is better than Van Damme and Seagal films mate all i an say is your insane and talking utter garbage

the plot is a weak rip-off of Taken and not in anyway as good. the female role should on all accounts being a excellent martial artist should of brought a better display to the table as seeing her fights on Youtube in the cage she is brutal and very skilled, none of this showed in this dire movie.

the plot again even though similar to Taken could not have been any further off, it dwindled and took an age to get to the point. Gina stumbled around aimlessly looking for answers and basically did nothing much about it. Unfortunately she cant act for toffee which doesn't help and with the weak performances all round she didn't stand a chance. this was worse than Haywire which i never thought possible but it is on so many levels and with some good actors on board I'm surprised this was so bland and weak....Avoid this boring movie..it truly is boring and the action what there is of it is awful...AVOID AVOID