Daughter of the Wolf is a 2019 action thriller about a highly-trained military veteran who hunts the men who kidnapped her son.
Gina Carano deserves better than she often gets, the former women’s MMA fighter turned actor sitting right on the edge of what should be superstardom. While she’s gained a lot of success in supporting roles, showing up in hits like Deadpool and Fast & Furious, she yet to really make her mark in the lead, her 2011 debut Haywire earning her some praise even as the film didn’t do so well. She’s got the skills and makes for a commanding presence, but no one seems able to make the most of what she’s got on tap. And that’s where we are with director David Hackl‘s formulaic thriller Daughter of the Wolf, a B-movie action flick that gives its lead plenty of opportunities to go big, but despite her best efforts, can’t give it any significance.
After returning home from her tour in the military, Clair Hamilton (Carano) buries her father and tries to make amends with her estranged teenage son (Anton Gillis-Adelman). Thing is, she doesn’t get much of a chance as the boy is soon kidnapped and held for ransom. However, when she shows up with a bag of cash, the deal goes sour, and after two of the goons are dead, she chases the third into the forest mountains where his boss ‘Father’ (Richard Dreyfuss) has the child hidden with a small band of hired guns. Now on the hunt to get Charlie back, it’s a race through the deep snows to stop a madman and survive a pack of hungry wolves.
Filmed on location in the peaks of British Columbia, at least Daughter of the Wolf has some terrific authenticity in where it all takes place, Carano trudging through the woods with real snow and ice a genuine hurdle. It’s not surprising how much that helps in selling the rest of the story, nature itself becoming one of the more potent ‘characters’ in the film, cinematographer Mark Dobrescu doing best in giving the story its proper place and feel. However, Nika Agiashvili‘s screenplay is far less impactful and while Hackl knows how to set up some action, loses traction early, the movie not nearly as frantic as it seems primed to be.
Most of the time in movies like this, say The Revenant or The Grey or even The Edge, the wild animals are symbolic, representative of some greater personal demon challenging the main characters. Not so here as Hackl nearly overuses his wolves in the first two acts, somewhat sapping their menace (not to mention a weird ‘connection’ thing that’s never really made sense of). Be that as it may, the wolves are only half the problem as credibility soon becomes an issue. Yes, it’s an action movie but it’s just not all that convincing with most of the fights stagey and a few ify exchanges in dialogue and acting.
Then there’s Father, a guy with a collection of grown ‘children,’ who is only superficially filled in, even as Dreyfuss does what he can with the trope-ish bad guy in the late stages. But hey, that’s nitpicky. A movie like this isn’t about reaching all the corners of course, it’s about violence and action, which it tries to keep sustained. Admittedly, a few good moments find their footing and Carano is always fun to watch, embracing the bloodlust out-for-revenge machismo typically meant for burly men. Fans of low budget thrillers will have plenty to keep them happy, and I’m always for a bit of beat ’em up with a woman doling out the punches, especially one with the ferocity of Carano. Daughter of the Wolf may not have the spectacle and awe of a big studio counterpart but it does as promised.