I was flipping through the movie channels the other day when I came across In the Blood, starring Gina Carano. The plot is pretty basic. Carano and her husband, played by Cam Gigandet, are on their honeymoon in the Caribbean. At first, it’s all lovely–Gigandet is wealthy and his family has a nice home on the island where the newlyweds frolic and fuck. They meet a local and go dancing. They have more sex. And then, the husband disappears during a ziplining accident. Carano has to find him! But she is thwarted by corrupt police! And gangsters! And his suspicious family!
In the Blood is not a good movie, really, but it is watchable. Carano is a great MMA fighter and always acquits herself well in an action movie even though she is not the most compelling actor to grace the silver screen. The reason the husband disappears is so ludicrous it starts to make sense like a motherfucker.
All that said, this movie surprised me, pleasantly, because she was the white knight. Her husband was a nice enough fellow, but he was the pretty one, always in peril. His wife had to kick ass to save him. She kicked ass to defend herself. She was capable and assured. When she wanted information, she got it, often ruthlessly. She didn’t apologize for being kick ass, didn’t compromise her femininity, and also allowed herself to be loved. I enjoyed every moment of it. The movie made me realize how goddamned rare it is to see women empowered and coming to the aid of an attractive man. All too often, it is the woman imperiled that serves as the plot device.
Early in the movie, the newlyweds are dancing at a nice club when a man, played by Danny Trejo, gets a little too cozy with Gina. Instead of the husband sputtering macho nonsense, Gina flips out and basically beats up everyone in the night club. Her husband looks at her, astonished because he did not know he married a ninja. Anyway, In the Blood, basically a feminist movie. Check it out.
P.S. What are you seeing this weekend?
What am I seeing this weekend? Friggin’ In The Blood, Apparently.
Netflix?
That looks great and I am a bit sad it’s not on UK netflix!
I am going to see ‘storytelling for grownups’ which this time round is Grimm’s lesser known stuff with the gore put back in and told by professional storytelling people, set to music, in a replica Iron Age earthhouse.
Mad Max: Fury Road, for the third time. I have a friend who remains woefully ignorant of its glory, and I must remedy that.
I wish it was still playing, anywhere in driving distance around me. Once was NOT enough.
“Gina flips out and basically beats up everyone” = entire plot of “Haywire.” Which is not a criticism!
Yes! I have previously recommended Haywire for just this reason. Any film whose leitmotif is “Gina Carano wins another knock-down, drag-out fight with one of Hollywood’s most bankably attractive actors” is OK in my book.
I love Haywire so much. I recommend it to every woman I know as the perfect cute for a really bad day.
Strange Days (from 1995!) directed by Kathryn Bigelow, is also an action movie in which the male lead, Ralph Fiennes, is in constant peril and rescued by the female lead, Angela Bassett. There is terrible violence against women and people of color, which is portrayed as horrifying and deserving of punishment, rather than something these people brought on themselves. Nearly all the white men in this movie are total assholes and pay for it. I cannot imagine how this film was ever made and released, except that James Cameron wrote it and even he could probably not get something like this made today.
Legit still kind of sad she wasn’t cast as Wonder Woman for the Justice League movies.
This sounds like fun!
I kind of want to see the Kristen Stewart stoner boyfriend/sleeper agent movie but I can’t tell if it’s going to be as enjoyable as the trailer. It’s very rare that Mr Cleo and I see a trailer together and we both say, wow, that looks fun.
This sounds like fun!
I kind of want to see the Kristen Stewart stoner boyfriend/sleeper agent movie but I can't tell if it's going to be as enjoyable as the trailer. It's very rare that Mr Cleo and I see a trailer together and we both say, wow, that looks fun.