Daughter of the Wolf 2019 * * Stars

Director: David Hackl
Year: 2019
Rated R
Rating: * * Stars
Cast: Gina Carano, Richard Dreyfuss, Brendan Fehr

"Where is my son?" "WHERE IS MY SON?!" That question and many others get asked a lot by Gina Carano via 2019's Daughter of the Wolf. Carano as Clair Hamilton proves she can headline a movie and not always a caged, MMA fight. "Wolf" has her in heavy-duty, female Haywire mode.

Anyway, Daughter of the Wolf at eighty-eight long minutes (that's an oxymoron), is like a version of The Grey with less nasty wolves, more ransom remnants, less terrain-ed obstacles, and weaker production values. It also feels like every cold weather/Internet thriller made in the last seven years despite some pretty nifty overhead shots.

The director of "Wolf" (Canadian David Hackl) stages a terrific shootout and chase sequence at the beginning. It gets your ears and eyes to perk up. The rest of the flick although steadfast, becomes uneven and tedious as it runs out of perpetual steam. Joe Carnahan would have looked around and said, "hey I can set up that shot a heck of a lot better".

Filmed in British Columbia, helmed by the guy who made Saw V, and showcasing scruffy Richard Dreyfuss in a rare, sort of villainous role, Daughter of the Wolf is about a military veteran (played by Carano) who tries to track down some ruffians responsible for kidnapping her teenage son.

Look for characters repeating the same dialogue in numerous scenes (see first paragraph), look for characters falling and drowning yet recovering very quickly, and look for Gina Carano emoting more as an actress as opposed to being just a bone-crunching, butt kicker.

Yup, Carano can act. Yup, Carano has some searing screen presence, and yup, Carano can sure as heck make loading a firearm seem coldly badass. Unfortunately the movie around her is wolves symbolism hooey. It doesn't quite measure up as this "wolf" is kept at bay. Rating: 2 stars.

Written by Jesse Burleson