[Movie] Protector - a mother with a mission

So this movie follows Nikki, played by Milla Jovovich, a former military operative who has tried to leave her violent past behind and live a quieter life with her daughter, Chloe and Of course, that peaceful life doesn't last... Chloe gets kidnapped, and Nikki suddenly has to go back to the person she used to be to bring her daughter home and honestly, the setup immediately reminded me of Taken.

You know that type of movie where someone takes the wrong person's child and then spends the rest of the movie discovering exactly why that was a terrible decision?
Yeah...
This is basically that... But instead of Liam Neeson, we've got Milla Jovovich and I can't lie, she carries the movie pretty well.

She is tough, physically capable and absolutely not interested in negotiating with anyone who gets between her and her daughter and once she starts hunting the people responsible, the movie becomes a long trail of fights, shootings, chasing and people making the unfortunate decision of standing in her way.

The action is probably the best thing about Protector for me because it's violent, fast and sometimes surprisingly brutal... Jovovich clearly knows how to handle this kind of role and watching her move through these situations feels believable because she actually looks like someone who knows how to fight.

But I won't lie... the story didn't impress me that much...
We've seen this formula so many times that you can basically predict where most things are going, so basically lack of suspense... Mother loses daughter, mother goes after criminals, police get involved, military gets involved, and suddenly everyone is trying to figure out whether they should stop her or help her...

There's nothing wrong with that kind of story, but I wanted something that would make Protector feel like its own movie... The movie also spends a lot of time dealing with some pretty dark subject matter, particularly human trafficking and That's not an easy subject to use for entertainment, sometimes I felt like the movie wasn't quite sure how seriously it wanted to approach it.

Still, I liked Nikki as a character.
She's a mother who has already been through a lot, and there's a sense that she's carrying plenty of guilt and trauma from her past then Her daughter being taken basically forces all of that back to the surface and that part actually worked for me emotionally because underneath all the guns and violence, this is really just a mother desperately trying to get her child back..
That's something anybody can understand...

I also liked the fact that Milla Jovovich doesn't try to make Nikki overly charming.... She's angry, tired and focused. She's not cracking jokes every seconds.. She's basically running on pure determination.

The supporting cast is decent, although I wouldn't say anyone really steals the movie from her...

Matthew Modine is good in his role, and there are some interesting moments involving Nikki's former military connections, but honestly, I was mostly waiting to see what Nikki would do next.

Unfortunately, some of the dialogue isn't great either...
There are quite a few scenes where characters explain things that the audience could have figured out themselves... The movie doesn't always trust us to understand what's happening but then the action starts again, and I'm like... "Okay, never mind. Let's continue."

The ending also tries to throw in a twist, and without spoiling it, I will just say that it definitely changes the way you look at some of what happened earlier... Whether you love the twist or think it's completely ridiculous probably depends on how much you're willing to forgive the movie.

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Rating: 80/100

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Originally posted through scrobble.life/movies.