INTENSIVE CARE ** USA 2018 Dir: Jared Bentley. 80 mins
Prolific stuntwoman Tara Macken is an appealing heroine in this corny would-be action thriller. It blandly plays out like an old TV movie and awkwardly combines flippant prostitute-killing with failed attempts at humour: note the “I thought you were gay!” running gag, coming to you straight from the year 1974! The punning title is matched by a premise that begs for an UNDER SIEGE-inspired scene of the heroine-with-a-past saying to the villains, “I also care…” Macken retired from her Black Ops reconnaissance work to become a caregiver on the ranch of terminally ill, filthy rich Leslie Easterbrook.
Her handsome but duplicitous grandson (Jai Rodriguez) dates Macken with the aim of getting his hands on some of the inheritance he has been denied, while a pair of small-time criminals attempt to crack the safe. What are the odds that their plans will go awry and Macken will be forced into her old arse-kicking ways? Macken gives her all in a predictable unfolding cat-and-mouse scenario, and director Bentley dutifully provides almost as many titillating underwear scenes as fight scenes, though all the characters are underwritten and the dialogue is frequently terrible: “I crossed paths with a couple of them when I was in Afghanistan – they were like ghosts!” The villains are weak, and it limps to the finishing line with one of those annoying mid-credits extra endings that turns out to be just as anti-climactic as the actual “ending”.
Review by Steven West