Mercenaria

I was expecting a simple bloodbath with bad acting and flimsy plot and came away impressed by the story, the filmmaking, and (especially) the acting.

Oksana Orlan may have been channeling her inner Ivan Drago but you can see the warmth beneath her steely facade. The other cast rises to her level, particularly Alanna De La Rossa, who knocks it out of the park as an annoying older teenage sister.

The filmmaking was remarkably slick for what was undoubtedly a micro-budget, shot on location in Columbia. The action sequences were top notch and it definitely delivered on the expected bloodbath.

The surprise was the nuanced script (kudos again to Ms Orlan who co-wrote alongside her director Michael Ojeda), which delivers complex relationships between the sprays of bullets. And there are a lot of bullets... lotsa lotsa bullets. And blood. Lotsa blood. Like a bath-worth of blood. (I'm hoping the sequel is Dominique seeking out talented therapists for some deep trauma work... maybe a medicine journey or some EMDR.)