PROTECTOR
(director: Adrian Grunberg; screenwriter: Bong Seob Mun; cinematographer: Vern Nobles Jr.; editor: Christian Wagner; music: Don Cherel; cast: Milla Jovovich (Nikki Halsted), Isabel Myers (Chloe Halsted), Bernie Gewissier (Bernard Halsted), D.B. Sweeney (Captain Michaels), Mattrew Modine (Col. Joseph Lavelle), Manny Montana (Victor the Butcher), Don Harvey (Sullivan, gang big shot), Gabriel Sloyer (gang leader), Arica Himmel (Ellie), Shane Williams (Ben Blaine), Jerry Marinas (Barry Lester); Runtime: 92; MPAA Rating: R; producers: Paul W.S. Anderson, Ford Corbett, Arianne Fraser, Matthew Heiderman, George Furia, Shawn Sanghani, Bang Okay Joo, Todd Lundbohm, Ho-Sung Pak, Kenneth Kim, Ceasar Richbow, Adrian Grunberg, Bob Yari; Magenta Light Studios, American Picture House; 2025)
“Mediocre revenge thriller.”
Reviewed by Dennis Schwartz
Adrian Grunberg (“Rambo-Last Blood”/”Bet the Gringo”) directs this mediocre revenge thriller written by Bong Seob Mun.
The ex-special forces soldier Nikki (Milla Jovovich) becomes a homebody in Las Cruces, New Mexico, when her husband (Bernie Gewissier) dies, as she wants to spend more time with her neglected 16-year-old daughter Chloe (Isabel Myers).
When Chloe’s kidnapped at a bar by a sex trafficker (Shane Williams), who spikes her drink, Nikki goes after her by tracking her phone. Chloe’s taken to the sex trafficker’s house where the gang keep their female captives. She’s tortured there by the thug Victor the Butcher (Manny Montana).
The hot-headed Nikki reunites with her sympathetic former soldier colleagues to help her retrieve her daughter. She’s advised by her former boss, the level-headed Colonel Lavelle (Mattrew Modine), to chill. In her effort to rescue Chloe, She leaves a trail of corpses and confronts the incompetent and shady police chief (D.B. Sweeney), who tries to shut her down because he’s on the gang’s payroll and resents that the military man Lavelle now heads the kidnapping investigation.
After some well-choreographed confrontations and some 13 killings, it concludes with a surprise twist ending.
Liam Neeson’s “Taken”, a better film, already covered the same territory. The plot holes in “Protector” are enormous, and it makes no sense the FBI is not investigating the kidnapping.
It played at the Busan International Film Festival.
REVIEWED ON 5/23/2026 GRADE: C-
dennisschwartzreviews.com