Former Special Ops soldier Nikki Halsted (Milla Jovovich) has been trained extensively in various ways to take a human life, however, no one ever prepared her for giving a life and taking care of a child. Nikki missed out on much of the first 15 years of her daughter Chloe’s (Isabel Myers) life. She constantly was constantly away, deployed in the Middle East. Now that Chloe’s father has passed away, she has made a change to be home full time, but for her daughter, it’s too little too late. For her 16th birthday, Chloe would rather spend time with her friends than with her mother, and sneaks out to a bar. She meets a cute boy named Ben (Shane Williams), but it’s all a set up. He works as a scout for a large human trafficking ring, and Chloe is his latest target.

When Chloe doesn’t return home, Nikki goes into full soldier mode, tracking her daughter down at the bar and witnessing her abduction. She chases after the kidnappers but the car with her daughter manages to get away. Now she’s on a desperate mission to find and rescue Chloe before the 72 hours are up until the trail likely runs cold. The organization that took her daughter is known as The Syndicate, and Nikki plans to burn their operation to the ground (literally), starting with low level employees like scout Ben and Victor the Butcher (Manny Montana) and moving on to those in charge, like Mr. Sullivan (Don Harvey) and The Chairman (Gabriel Sloyer), until she finds Chloe. Nikki is a mother scorned and quickly leaves a trail of bodies in her wake as she looks for answers. Monitoring the exploits of The Syndicate are Captain Michaels (D.B. Sweeney) and his task force—Detective John Blake (Michael Stahl-David), Detective Alexa Jane (Lydia Hull) & rookie Detective Jin Woo (Chase E. Kim). However, Michaels seems more fixated on stopping this mysterious vigilante they see systematically wiping out members of The Syndicate. As Nikki tries to evade the cops while racing against the clock to rescue her daughter, her mentor Colonel Lavelle (Matthew Modine) also arrives to step in to try to take control of the situation.

It’s impossible to not see the parallels between Protector and the iconic Taken. Nikki is a brutal and ruthless killer with a particular set of skills she will utilize against anyone who stands in the way of rescuing her kidnapped daughter. However, I don’t think this film is as memorable as or will have the staying power of Taken. One odd choice right off the bat is the decision to immediately jump over the first 28 hours of Nikki’s search. We are just told about her exploits during that period, rather than actually showing her in action. It was a bit jarring and felt like a whole chunk of the film had just been edited out for no reason. Instead of seeing her locate and take down some members of The Syndicate and burn part of their operation to the ground, we are just told that these events happened. We jump from her seeing the car with her daughter drive off to seeing Nikki tied up in front of Victor the Butcher, who states that the organization is frustrated by her actions and that she has become a nuisance. From this point on, the action then continues as expected but it felt like an odd choice narratively.

When we do get to see Nikki deploy her skills, the fights and action sequences are quite entertaining, and Milla Jovovich is phenomenal—something we’ve seen her excel at for decades in The Fifth Element and the Resident Evil franchise, and she’s still got it. However, other elements of the movie didn’t quite work for me. In general the film feels a bit low budget, with scenes that feel more like empty sets rather than populated environments out in public. It’s pretty much just Nikki and whoever needs to be in the scene, not an extra in sight. There’s also this constant narration from Nikki about her time as a soldier that feels a bit heavy handed and not quite pertinent to what’s going on. The film takes an unexpected turn at the end that didn’t really make sense or feel earned. I also found it odd how these cops are so fixated on stopping Nikki, rather than actually taking down this human trafficking operation they’ve been monitoring but doing nothing to stop—if anything, Captain Michaels should be thanking Nikki for doing his job!

Despite some of the film’s narrative shortcomings, I think fans of Milla Jovovich will want to check this out to see her in action.

Magenta Light Studios has released Protector on Blu-ray & DVD for physical media, but it is also available in 4K on digital. We were sent the Blu-ray release for review. The visual presentation is solid, with what felt like a specific gritty look to fit the tone of the film. The audio track provides clear dialogue throughout, and makes nice use of the stereo and surround channels to provide an immersive experience. This can be felt in some of the action sequences as well as some of the early war scenes, such as when a helicopter flies overhead.

The Blu-ray disc is placed in a standard HD keepcase. Our review copy did not include a slipcover. There is no digital copy code included, and the disc contains no bonus material.

What’s Included:

Film (1:31:35):

Blu-ray:
• 1080p / Widescreen 2.39:1
• Audio: English DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1
• Subtitles: English SDH

Extras:

No bonus material included.

Final Thoughts:

Protector feels like a lower budget version of Taken. However, Milla Jovovich gives a strong performance and showcases her particular set of action/fighting skills. Magenta Light Studios’ Blu-ray features a solid presentation, but unfortunately is barebones, without any bonus material. The film is worth a look for Jovovich fans.