Parents' Guide to Protector

Jovovich crafts an interestingly troubled and sympathetic character in this action thriller, but her work is in service of a flawed, confusing script that leaves off with a bewildered "what?" Initially, Protector feels like the Taken movies and, for that matter, most other movies about a) a highly trained parent rescuing a kidnapped child, and b) evil human trafficking rings. So, to differentiate itself, Protector tries to add a new wrinkle to the formula, but it doesn't work. When the chase begins, Nikki sets a timer on her wrist for 72 hours, explaining that, after that time has elapsed, there's little to no chance of finding the missing person. But then suddenly her timer drops to 44 hours, and she's hanging upside down in a warehouse, taunted by someone called "the butcher." What happened? Why are we missing this time?

The blanks are eventually filled in via a few flashbacks and a lot of dialogue (maybe the sequence was too expensive to film?), and things get going again, but it becomes apparent that the supporting characters are all very thinly drawn, especially the villains. Matthew Modine is basically here to deliver explanatory dialogue, and poor D.B. Sweeney as a police captain has lines like "she's obviously a trained killer of some sort." Finally, there comes a reveal that tries to explain everything but is more likely to leave viewers dumbfounded. It's not a terrible idea, but saving it as a surprise twist for the end was probably not the way to go with a movie about such a serious subject. Protector is a missed opportunity that should have been protected from itself.