Movie Review: Blood Out

Movie Review: Blood Out

Released: April 2011

Directed by: Jason Hewitt

Written by: Jason Hewitt, John A O’Connell

Parental Rating: R, so you can expect language within from me as well.

Spoiler Alert: Most likely, but really it won’t spoil anything. I yap so much, I don't even care about inevitable errors. Deal with it.

Confessions 33 Rating: Gerard Butler

I need to preface this review by stating the only reason I put this movie in my Netflix queue and then proceeded to watch it is because of Ed Quinn. He is honestly the only redeeming thing about this movie because if he weren’t in it, I wouldn’t have bothered. But seriously, I don’t care about anyone in this movie other than Ed. That being said…on to my review!

Highlights:

Ed Quinn as Anthony

It was filmed in Louisiana

Soundtrack is pretty kickin’

Okay, so the movie opens with an action sequence, of course. SWAT comes into some drug house to bust everyone, but most everyone ends up dying in the fray. There’s a brief chase between one SWAT member and some guy that ends with SWAT guy shooting Some Guy in the back, not realizing Some Guy has his gun aimed square at a little girl. When he shoots Some Guy in the back, SG shoots Little Girl. Nice opening.

Next up, we find out who a few of the players are: Michael (Luke Goss) is SWAT guy who shot Some Guy and now feels awful for the ‘collateral damage’, but somehow manages to go on. His friend and co-SWAT member, Billy (Shaun Grant), informs Michael that his brother, David, has called a few times, but Michael isn’t interested in calling him back.

Shortly thereafter, David (Ryan Donowho), just sort of shows up at the police station where Michael works. This annoys Michael, but David is adamant they speak. So, they meet behind the police station and have a little chat about David wanting to leave his gang life behind because he has a girlfriend, Gloria (Stephanie Honore), whom he wants to marry. She won’t marry him, though, until he’s out of the gang.

Michael isn’t impressed until David shows him that he intends to give this girl their mother’s ring. Well then! Now David has his attention! Let’s get you a place and set up, okay? Okay.

Meanwhile, Sinister Gang Guy lurks in the darkness watching the exchange from a distance, assuming David is a snitch. He makes a call saying, “We have a problem.” Oh, good.

Hooray! Now I can start caring because Anthony (Ed Quinn) arrives on the scene. A phone call in the night rouses David from his sleep. He gets up to take the call out of earshot of his sleeping girlfriend who he loves SO MUCH that he’s leaving the gang for her. Quick shot of Ed’s handsome face. *le sigh* (you’re gonna get a lot of that, so deal with it)

This scene amuses the hell out of me because when Anthony starts speaking it’s hysterical to me. I know what Ed is supposed to sound like; he has this lovely baritone voice that just makes you sort of want to turn into a puddle of goo and he doesn’t really have an accent of which to speak being he’s from California, it’s negligible.

Anyway, Anthony starts talking and he has what I think is supposed to be a Louisianan accent. Why do I find this so damn amusing? Well, my father was born and raised in Louisiana and to this very day has his accent. He hasn’t lived in Louisiana in more than four decades and you can still hear that awesome southern Louisianan drawl that is unmistakable to the area. Not to mention all of the family I have that still lives there.

Growing up with this accent in my ear affords me a certain ability to pick it out when it’s really, really wrong. There’s a certain finesse to the accent that one can’t just do, it has to sort of be lived. And while I love Ed, he just can’t do it, so I find it really cute when he speaks because it’s just bad. It mellows out, or I just come to terms with it, because it isn’t grating like Christian Bale’s fucking horrendous Batman voice (UGH). I can’t even watch Dark Knight because of it! Argh! Thanks Bale.

As if Ed Quinn’s adorable attempt at a Louisianan accent weren’t enough to make me giggle like an idiot throughout this movie, one of his first lines has him saying ‘cracker’ and I just roll on the ground when he does! It’s too freakin’ cute.

So, not only do I have accept this accent, I have to also remember he’s supposed to be this hardened gangster from the streets of, I believe this is supposed to take place in, Shreveport, LA, and the dialogue must be as such, so he gets to say things like, “…crackers he hasn’t vetted yet…” *lol* Whut? You cute graduate of U.C. Berkeley, you. I just have a hard time taking a brilliant graduate and dumbing him down to a not so brilliant gangster.

Okay, fine, I’ll suspend my belief and move forward. Oh, I have to take this moment and just say, you know how High Definition television usually shows you all the little imperfections of an otherwise beautiful or handsome actress or actor? Ha, well, it only enhances the flawlessness that is Ed Quinn; he has no imperfections. Just an ageless face.  Jus’ sayin’. Moving on.

All right, so Anthony has coaxed David out of his house to make some drop. They meet up at some railroad tracks and bullshit a little bit waiting for these “new crackers” *snicker* when suddenly! Headlights pop on behind them and about dozen or so people come filing out of the darkness. I smell a set up.

More new players. Fun. All righty then, no names are really given yet, so…we have two men who appear to be in charge, some blonde chick in leather, and a bunch of tatted up gangsters. Oh! Ha! Anthony has a handful of ‘tattoos’ on him, only one of which (at the moment) can really be made out on the right side of his neck which is a black ‘13’, there’s something on the left side of his neck, but I haven’t been able to make it out. I find that really irritating. I told you, lots of this shit because I just adore him.

Okay, so 2 guys, a girl, and a bunch of tatted up gangsters (sounds like the premise of a really bad B-movie, oh, wait…) show up to ‘see off’ David because apparently he’s a snitch! Oh noes! He isn’t, but that’s neither here nor there, he explains he just wants out of the gang. Anthony is not happy about the ambush.

Ah! We have a name now. Elias (Tamer Hassan), is one of the two guys in charge of this group of delinquents. And the other is Zed (Vinnie Jones) who says David can go. Elias basically says, fine, but he still has to get his ass beat up possibly to death before he can go and BREAK!

David pleads his case and we find out that even when his mother was killed in a drive-by where he should have died, he didn’t snitch. They aren’t really interested, so now a bunch of these gangsters beat up on David while Anthony stands aside not  happy about the situation one little bit.

I just realized, they have to have Anthony stand off to the side because he’s so much bigger than the ‘guys in charge’ that he makes them look wimpy. Ha. Ha-ha.

After the ass kicking, they let him walk away, but Zed decides to get dramatic and shoot David in the back. Walking up behind him, he takes dead aim at David, saying, “Blood in, blood out.” BANG. Ooooh, drama. Anthony stands in stunned silence.

Enter Michael again. He gets the phone call about his brother and goes down to the railroad tracks. The cops down here don’t really care that Michael is David’s brother or that Michaels is also a cop. David’s a gangster/snitch, so they are very, ‘meh’ about the whole situation. This angers Michael.

Note: Jason Hewitt has given himself the role of one of the detectives, Det. Jones. He probably should have stayed in the director’s chair; not saying his role is terrible or he’s terrible at it, but there are things he should have done as a director that maybe he should have focused on.

Michael starts to research David’s death while he waits to hear back from the cops actually on the case. The cops just won’t return his phone calls or give him any information no matter how often he calls! Bah! We discover some tattoos of a gang out of Baltimore that resembles the one David had on his neck.

Eventually, Michael goes to the Metro to speak with Det. Hardwick who turns out to be 50 Cent. Okay, who the hell is letting 50 Cent act in movies? Ugh, well I guess if you’re one of the Executive Producers, you get to put yourself in the movie AND first on the cover when you’re not even really integral to the story line. Honestly, Det. Jones could have carried what Det. Hardwick does, but I’m guessing that was part and parcel of getting backing from 50.

Anyway, the Metro PD is still very ‘meh’ about the death of David and aren’t really investigating and are annoyed at Michael’s persistent that they waste their time on a snitch. Michael turns to leave and Det. Hardwick decides he’s going to suckerpunch Michael and then have Det. Jones hold him down for a proper beating. Really? You’ve taken nine bullets and you have to have someone hold down another for you to pound on them? You ain’t so hard, Fiddy.

Anyway, they tase him and lock him up in a bathroom overnight, I guess, then let him go after talking some more shit to him. Well, now Michael is really annoyed. Here we learn something about ‘someone high up is taking control at local or even state level’, but I don’t know if that means gang related or…what. It isn’t really specified, but I’ll assume we’re talking gang related.

Now, Michael starts dreaming about driving his cop car around following some kid wearing a hoodie on foot. He starts a foot chase shooting the person in the hoodie while having flashes of his time with Det. Hardwick and Jones, blah, blah, blah. When he goes up to the body, first it’s his brother, then it’s him.

Now Michael is on a mission! A mission to avenge the death of his brother David! Note: this is the MDQ (major dramatic question) and is important for later: will Michael be able to avenge the death of his brother David? Stay tuned to find out! Well, that’s why I’m here! Okay, really I'm here for Ed, who am I kidding?

Driving down the street on his bike he finds an all-night tattoo joint. All right, let me just get my Bitch Hat on now because the following scene annoys the absolute shit out of me. Were I still naïve to the tattoo and what comes along with getting one maybe, just maybe I’d be able to forgive this scene and lack of time lapse within, but I’m not and it drives me utterly insane whenever I do sit and watch this scene.

He enters this tattoo shop with two blokes who seem slightly suspicious of Michael instantly. Well, he does look rather shady, but you’re an all-night tattoo parlor, what do you really expect? High class citizens strolling in at 3am looking for work? No, you get crazy vengeance driven men such as Michael popping in smoking cigarettes, wearing a leather jacket, asking for gangster tattoos and a bunch of other work to be done in ONE EVENING.

Here’s where dear Jason and John lose me. Anyone who’s ever gotten a tattoo knows how long it takes for said tattoo to heal, also how one leaves a tattoo parlor, i.e. tattoo is covered in a bandage for a spell. Hello! It’s an open fucking wound!!!

Not to mention, I don’t think even the shadiest of the shady tattoo parlors who want to stay in business would put two men on one guy and start tattooing away, donning some skinny white guy in two full sleeves, chest, neck, and back work. I don’t care how much cash the guy has. Forget the fact that all the work he ends up getting would take so long that I don’t think even two guys in one night could get it all done in one sitting. Luckily, he didn’t have any color done or I really would have pitched a fucking fit.

I have one tattoo. It’s on the back of my neck and it’s about three inches by three inches. Click here to see it. You can see how beautifully un-fancy it is. I love it, but it isn’t fancy by any means and let me tell you. It took two and a half hours, I believe, for him to do it and I didn’t have him stop once. The only time he stopped was when he needed to. I found the entire thing really relaxing, it didn’t feel like two and a half hours (it could have been only two, but I know it wasn’t less than a couple hours), but it was still two and a half hours, let’s just say give or take a half hour.

See how much of my body it isn’t covering? Yeah, Michael gets full sleeves, chest, neck, and back work, “right now”. Enter really bad tattooing scene and it appearing that Michael gets all this work done in one sitting, in just a few hours¸ and can walk around with no bandages right after. Really? You couldn’t be arsed to put a little Two months later at the bottom of the screen so I can semi-realistically follow along?

You already ask me to believe an intelligent, gorgeous man such as Ed Quinn is some gangster from the ‘hood, running around calling people ‘crackers’ and the like and I accept it because he’s an actor and it’s his job to make me believe it, but I really draw the line at the immediate tattooing and jetting off to become a vigilante all in one evening. Oh, and procuring a room for himself in some slummy hotel with some skeevy landlady.

It also, appears that in the same nycthemeron we are to believe he’s wandering the streets of his new ‘home’ to immediately establish himself. It isn’t long before four black guys (one with a really ridiculous afro) from a gang called the ‘Indigos’ gang up on him and attempt to beat the shit out of the poor ‘white boy’.

Amazingly, white boy knows how to fight and takes them all on by himself; meanwhile Anthony, an unknown, and the guy who snitched on David (ironic really that the snitch didn’t actually get killed, hurp durp) sit nearby in an El Dorado (’73, I think, though I could be talking dog farts, cars aren’t my forté) watching. Michael throws his sign and they drive away.

Question: why doesn’t the Snitch recognize Michael? Michael and David were under a damn street light and it isn’t like Michael was concealing his identity. Hi, how are you?

Gratuitous girl in leather dominating two more girls in leather scene while Elias watches on smoking a joint. This guy looks like he’s who you get when you can’t afford Antonio Banderas, anyway. There’s soon a buzz at the door and he shouts, “Will someone get the fucking door!” making it seem as though someone other than the chick doing the dominating could get the door.

No. She has to stop what she’s doing and get the door. What? You dummy, pay some thug to answer your door you idiot. Aren’t you supposed to be getting off, not yelling at her to answer your door as well? You friggin’ mo’.

Enter Anthony *le sigh* and Squat (Sam Medina). Here we finally get blonde girl’s name: Anya (AnnaLynne McChord), who really isn’t all that great of an actress at least not in this film. I can’t really judge her because I haven’t seen her in anything else, but in this, she’s bad. Although, that’s not entirely her fault.

There’s some blah, blah, blah about Michael taking out the four guys alone and Squat’s all jumpy for some reason as Anthony relays how he also took their gear afterward. I guess Squat doesn’t do well around semi-attractive blondes. Really, they’re nothing to write home about. Anthony doesn’t seem to care either way.

Elias tells them to go find this new guy and bring him back, leaving Anthony with this ominous message: We cut off the heads of those that don’t bow. I guess that’s supposed to be scary, but I’m not really sure what it means. I guess they just kill whoever they feel like whenever they feel like. Except so far only one person has been killed. Right? Right. Let’s go!

Now, they decide to catch us up on timeline *sort of*. Michael puts a call into his buddy Billy who asks, “Where have you been?!” indicating only now that Michael has been gone for any amount of time. Really, him leaving the tattoo parlor with some bandages on, looking uncomfortable before his taking off on his bike would have been sufficient to move me along adequately with the story and you’d get no bitching from me about any of this.

Okay, so Michael asks for a favor, Billy agrees, they hang up, Michael goes out wandering.

*LOL* Another moment where I cannot help but giggle incessantly at Ed’s dialogue because it’s so out of character for him and his normal speech pattern. ‘Yo Cuz’ and ‘bidness’ he says. *snicker* Hee! Hee, hee! Ahem.

Michael gets in the car with Anthony and Squat and they go off to the Metro PD. They refer to it as the “Cop Shop” (at least that’s what I’m hearing) where Michael is to “make them proud”, by doing…something. What he ends up doing is kicking the shit out Det. Hardwick and putting his head through the driver side window of his own car. Ha, Fiddy, you dummy.

Quick little scene of Michael and Anthony selling and sort of bonding a bit before we learn that Anthony misses David when the three of them (Michael, Anthony, and Squat) are all chillin’ and Anthony pours some on the ground. Michael’s curious and that’s when Anthony brings up David.

Squat gets all ‘fuck that snitch!’ and Anthony promptly tells Squat to ‘shut the fuck up, you know he wasn’t no snitch’ and we learn that he really did just want to get out and get married. Apparently, Anthony and David were closer than they really made it appear in the beginning. Hmmm. Squat wants to know why Zed made them do what they did then and Anthony lets us know his true feelings about Zed: he’s a fuckin’ animal. Squat sort of feels bad.

Michael questions: Zed? Ruh oh. Shouldn’t you know who he is?! Suspicions arise, but only slightly.

Next up, Michael gets to meet Elias. I’m particularly fond of the beginning of this scene just because of Anthony’s silhouette when he’s walking. *giggleteehee* Soon we’re inside a warehouse and Michael sees Anya for the first time and their eyes lock in unbridled passion. Or something like that. He catches up to Anthony and Squat who praise what he did at the Cop Shop.

Elias does a little background digging on Michael to see how legit he is. Eventually, he’s welcomed into his new set followed immediately by the obligatory drug/sex orgy montage. Which annoys me on a couple of levels: 1) okay, really it’s only one level: there’s barely any Anthony and when we do see him he’s putting his shirt back on. No, no, no, no thank you. I’d like to have seen his tattoos thank you!!!!!!! Especially, on that body. What’s the point of detailing tats that aren’t going to be showcased at least ONCE, you bastards. Argh! I barely count seeing his hand or the side of his face as being in this montage. Seriously, you bastards.

Oh, nope, level 2) some chick gets to run around in his shirt afterward. *grumble*

They sort of redeem themselves by having Anthony and Michael drive around looking for trouble. They find it and I find Anthony has a tattoo on the back of his neck of a dog (I have a theory about this, but I’m keeping it to m’self) and omg freckles on his shoulders! *squee!!*

Side note: there’s a bottle of water in the car. Do gangsters drink bottled water? I always see them drinking beer or liquor in the movie. I wager bad editing – happens. Anyway…

So, they pull up to these three gangsters and some, what I would call, chickenhead, who promptly (and quite smartly) runs off at the first hint of danger, which is when Anthony throws his car in park and stands up in his seat (obviously it’s a convertible, I just neglected to mention it until now), taunting the three ‘ladies’ he’s cornered.

Of course, I love this scene because there’s extra Anthony in it! But before all that, we have to deal with Michael starting a fight with these guys. Brilliant! He puts one of them down and proceeds to the other two, getting them both at gun point. While his back is turned, though, the first guy tries to get him, but Anthony jumps out of the car onto him and starts beating the shit out him ending with him saying how he’d forgotten how much fun that was. *le sigh*

Needless to say I rewind that scene a few times because here we also see (which could *sort of* be seen before) another tattoo on his chest. *rawr* Okay, moving on. I swear, the guy he beats up looks like could be related to me and I’d have no clue. Hmmm.

After all the excitement, Anthony and Michael go hang out drinkin’ on some corner. Here Anthony learns a bit more about Michael after Michael gives a homeless woman a shitton of cash after Anthony just told her they had nothing for her *lol*, you dick. Anthony wants to know why Michael doesn’t give the money to someone more worthy like his ‘mamma’. Michael explains that his mother was killed in a drive-by and he had a brother who “died bangin’”.

It’s apparently sharing and caring time because we learn that Anthony has a sister who’s a “mess: pregnant and strung out and a general fuckin’ pain in his ass”. Oh, fun!

Gun! Speaking of drive-bys…the guys Michael humiliated earlier come back for some revenge, but they miss because Michael is just that quick, getting him and Anthony out of harm’s way! Anthony promptly returns fire never losing his beer. Beer, check; gun, check; bullet holes…none. Excellent…except for the trunk of his car.

Now all of a sudden we’re in…on some island peninsula…somewhere, I’m guessing Columbia, maybe? Could be Key West for all I fuckin’ know, they don’t really do a good job of segueing.

We are in the backyard of some fat and apparently rich white guy portrayed by an out of shape, stringy haired, Val Kilmer. He’s hanging out in a robe at the pool in what is supposed to be his lavish backyard (uh, not really) with some ‘babes’ (subjective) and he’s on the phone with…someone talking about…something. I don’t really know because I can only hear his half of the conversation. I don’t even know if we ever learn his name within the movie, but that’s because I don’t really care about anyone but Anthony.

Something about a summit? Something about an American…he needs information on him because what they have isn’t enough! There’s talk about a Ministry (perhaps Zed & Elias? No clue) and paper work has to be dropped off  at any cost and now someone must DANCE!

Hooray! More Anthony! This is how crazy I am: the sunglasses Ed is wearing here are the same sunglasses he wears in the Ex Files on the bridge with Jack. I don’t know why that makes me giggle so hard, but I find it entertaining to think that he’s probably wearing all of his own clothing and I for some reason dig that. Then again, he is super tall, so it’s probably just easier for him…either way, I dig it.

Okay, so here’s when we meet the pregnant and strung out sister. We don’t get a name yet, but she looks like she could maybe be strung out, but we can tell she probably cleans up really well. She and Anthony are fighting over whether or not he’s going to help her with her little drug habit. He says, “No.” She insists because she knows he sells it, he doesn’t care because she’s pregnant and isn’t going to help her kill herself. I love this little scene because he starts out sitting, but then stands at his full height and something about that is just, ‘nnggggh’ and he’s being all brotherly, smacking a joint out of her hand, “You’re fuckin’ pregnant!”

She gets mad and storms off in a fit saying she’ll go suck a dick to get whatever it is she needs. Fantastic. Meanwhile, Michael and Squat come around the corner and she stops to flip off her brother. When she does this, Michael sees the ring on her finger. Dun, dun, DUN. It’s his mother’s engagement ring! This must be Gloria! The fiancée mentioned to Michael in the beginning!

Okay, wait. She’s also Anthony’s pregnant and strung out sister? Would have been nice if they’d mentioned all this shit BEFORE we got here to tie all this in together a little bit better.

Like David also mentioning to Michael that his girlfriend is pregnant would have been sufficient, it would have also given the audience a, “hmm, perhaps this pregnant sister of Anthony’s is also Gloria?”, but no, none of that. Let’s just write it in as an afterthought, “oh, let’s make her pregnant and Anthony’s sister! Drama! No one will notice!” Well, I fucking noticed.

This scene gets rewound a lot too. ;-) I’d like to take this moment and reiterate how I love him in High Def. <3

Okay, some more stuff happens. I tend to zone out here because Anthony becomes less and less, but I’ll try to focus here for you. Ha!

What goes down now is Michael has become Elias’ new “General”, which is basically the guy who can kick the most ass without taking many hits himself. I don’t know what happened to their last General if they even had one or what the deal is. I’m not really sure why he’s been accepted so easily into this supposedly badass gang. So far we’ve received two suspicious stares and not much else.

Anyway, we learn what a General is and what he does: he’s a sort of recruiter for the gang, looking for ‘soldiers’. Blah. Basically, a gangster with strategic reasoning is what he is.

It’s time for Anya to hit on Michael. High Definition is not so nice to her, let’s just say that. She hands him a folder, says she’ll be watching him tonight, and I’m sure he splooshes in his pants.

All right, so the ‘crew’ is sent out to ‘recruit’ some new members which is done by busting into some other joint full of bangers and drugs and whatever. Prior to this, Michael has a strategy and no one really finds this strange except for maybe Anya.

They have her standing off by herself sort of (she’s the only girl among like eight dudes, nice) looking sort of confused with her gun already tightly gripped in both hands. Why? Maybe because she’s the only girl surrounded by eight dudes. When all the guys wander off toward their marks, she kind of lingers back, but they don’t do anything with this. THIS would have been the perfect opportunity to zoom in on her face as she looks on with a, “this is fishy” kind of look on her face. There’s some actual drama for you because now we’re worried she might rat him out to Elias and Michael has no clue! But no, she just catches up and causes a mess when they get inside. Ugh.

Quick scene where Anya and some chick get into a fight, while others are gathered and handcuffed off-camera. Michael says they have a “rabbit” (I think!), so he and Anthony take off running, ending up in a room with Squat and Kelvin who are fighting. Michael takes over, beats up Kelvin, and he and Anthony cuff Kelvin welcoming him to his new set.

Party time! A party is being held. Now it’s time for Anya and Michael to grill each other and then bang on the conveniently placed bed they happen to be standing in front of, sweet. We even *sort of* get a nipple, but it’s hardly worth the over acted sex scene.

After they bang, she swabs his…mouth for…DNA. Wait, what? You just fucked the guy, I’m willing to bet he came somewhere in the vicinity of you and guess what’s full of DNA? Uh, semen, which you probably have on you…somewhere and you’re swabbing his mouth? Hell, you might even have some in *your* mouth. How incredibly stupid. Seriously.

Hey! Billy! I remember you! It’s been forever! We find out that the Feds are apparently all over the RSA (or whoever they are) and warns Michael against doing some “vigilante type shit” and to not get killed. Yeah, yeah. Thanks for the concern, kid.

And now for some reason Michael has tracked down Gloria. She thinks he’s gonna give her some drugs and he’s like, “Uh, no, I’m here for you and your baby! It’s the reason I’ve come here! To save you!”

Wait just one second here, buddy boy. Oh, no. You’re here to avenge your brother. You had no fucking clue this chick was pregnant until like two days ago, so don’t give me this “I’ve come for you!” crap. Are we changing the MDQ? See why I said this was important earlier? Is the MDQ now, “Can Michael save David’s pregnant fiancée?”

And if it is changing to that, why the fuck is Anthony okay with this? How about Anthony, whom we’ve already seen is sort of pulling away from this shit, decides he’s gonna take his own damn sister away to let her have her baby in peace? Why does some stranger have to come do this?! What?! What?!

Hooray! More Anthony. I was going through withdrawal. Whew! He’s come to pick up Michael and has no idea why, but Elias wants him now. Smells like another set up and Anthony looks a little weary.

I guess this is supposed to be ominous, but it isn’t. I can’t take Anya seriously, smoking her little slim cigarette, holding and polishing some ridiculously large gun. Oh! We get a name for Val Kilmer, Arturo. He’s “over South America”, okay so now things start to sort of come together, but I don’t get why this wasn’t sort of introduced in the first place. It’s as though they had a lot of really fun ideas that they wanted to cram into one movie, but forgot one only has so many pages (or perhaps in this case cash) to film before you gotta wrap shit up or you start to lose people.

Michael has to fight against Arturo’s General to see who wins control over the Americas. Michael cleverly asks, “Who’s over Europe?” Hurp durp. If he loses, they all work for Arturo, if he wins, Zed is over Everything and Elias is over North America while, I guess, Arturo is still in control of South America, but now has to answer/share wealth with Zed. With me?

This part of the movie really could have been a movie in itself. It’s like a weird revenge/fight club movie wrapped into one, that shouldn’t have been.

Next, Michael gets a call from Anthony about his run in with Gloria, who now suddenly wants help. I still don’t understand why Anthony can’t do this himself or why this girl can’t walk in regular shoes.

We figure out that Anthony’s disenchanted with gang life as it’s headed and sees that Elias and Zed are getting a little crazy and he should probably start thinking about the future. All the more reason he should just take his damn sister now and skip town and let Michael deal with this revenge thing, but we still don’t know if the MDQ now is the first one or this new one, and we won’t know  until the end of the damn movie.

But wait! There’s more. Anya arrives at Michael’s place sometime after he meets up with Gloria announcing, “I know you’re a cop,” which he rebuffs and she runs down her list of why she knows and suddenly we find she’s a FED! Oh, really? Are you kidding me? Yeah, okay.

He tells her he’s here for revenge for his brother! He’s a vigilante remember?! Zed killed my brother! He must pay! So now we’re back to MDQ being the revenge thing. Okay, got it.

Now we’re in a room with Zed, Elias, and Arturo apparently before the summit talking about who wants what out of today’s event. Arturo speaks in tongues basically.

Yay! More Anthony…for thirty seconds, Anya sends him and Squat out to give words of encouragement and then to briefly make out with Michael. Woo.

More riddles from Arturo.

Anthony strolls in, Squat following behind and he’s carrying a trunk for Michael. Michael sees it’s some gladiator uniform (what the hell is this shit) and is like, “What the hell is this shit.” Okay, I’m paraphrasing, but this is really getting ridiculous. Or maybe I just don’t know what gang life really is like in the ‘Hood, maybe this shit really does go down somewhere in the depths and I’ll never be privy to all its nuances. Maybe. Doubtful, but maybe.

Michael declines the outfit and tells Squat to chuck it.

More riddles from Arturo.

Meanwhile, Anthony tells Michael his sister’s gone missing and he’s gonna go look for her and then afterward he’s gonna go “ghost”, so things have to go well and Michael needs to focus. Okay, so it looks like Anthony’s gonna go be a big brother and get his sister the hell out of there. Fantastic.

More riddles from Arturo. He knows who his family is though! Just sayin’.

Montage of gangsters, belly dancers who are mostly topless with paint on them, except for the one who performs, for some reason.

Enter now, Michael, Squat, and Anthony. Wait, I thought you were going to go look for your missing sister now, dude? That’s sort of what you said…but okay, give your support, then go find your sister. This is far more important.

Arturo gets weirder and weirder by the minute. After belly dancing and Michael, he stamps his cane and gives some weird ass speech about Mars, Juno, and God of War…making everyone shout, “Hail Mars, son of Juno, God of War” and some other weird bullshit a la Jim Morrison and the Soft Parade that I’m sure means something to someone somewhere, but really not me because now’s about when I check out.

Some enormous dude shows up in full gladiator garb and somehow does not look utterly ridiculous in it. Sort of like Ed Quinn’s full garb in Dressed to Kilt, so hot, but I digress.

Fight on. Okay, Hector (Bobby Lashley) is this enormous guy Michael has to fight. He makes Michael look really puny and could probably break him in two in real life. What kills me is that he has this cute little face when he’s angry that reminds me of the face me and all of the Garrison children make when we’re up to something. It’s hilarious. Only he’s up to something and mad about it.

Swing, duck, punch. Punch, kick, stomp. Etc, etc, etc. It looks like Michael’s going down. But wait! He’s up! Kick to the head, jump on some chain, wrap legs around neck, and start choking the shit out of Hector. Guess who taps out? Bye, Hector.

Arturo is out of riddles and stupid chants now, but has mystical parting words that mean really nothing because there’s no way this movie will ever have a sequel unless Fiddy puts up the cash and writes the script himself and he plays all the parts, so who knows what the hell he’s saying? He’s pouting.

Zed thinks he’s taking over everything, Elias reminds me of Chester here, all “Want we should go beat up a cat, Spike?!”

Okay, things start getting exciting as people start leaving and now Michael runs after Zed who pulls a gun on him and Elias produces Gloria.

Elias suddenly thinks he can take on Michael and hands Gloria off to Zed, who takes off in a car. Michael chases after them on his bike after quickly disposing of Elias and what ensues is the worst CGI’d chase scene I’ve ever encountered in my life. The green screen is really awful and in this age of HD, you need to step up your fucking game. If Ed Quinn, as a human, can look flawless in HD, your CGI better be awesome or live without it because you just cheapened the hell out of an already cheap movie. You’ve asked me to suspend too much belief already to leave me with shitty CGI at what is supposed to be the climax of your movie!

In any case, car chase ends in crash and car flipping several times and landing near Michael, who helps Gloria out of the car and checks her over to see if she’s okay. Zed, gets out, climbs on top of the car and Michael starts begging for their lives. Dude, where is your damn gun now?!

Zed takes aim at Gloria and Michael suddenly has flashes of David (remember him? Yeah, the brother he’s supposed to avenge? Lest we forget…) and the little girl at the very beginning of the movie who was killed, yadda, yadda, when suddenly a gunshot rings out and Zed, looking very surprised, falls forward.

There’s Anya with her little gun. “Blood in, blood out,” she says and shoots Zed again all cold like. Wait, what? So the MDQ isn’t properly answered in the end, and Michael is not able to avenge his brother’s death. Anya does. Tsk.

Just in case no one was paying attention, though and is now following along with the new MDQ, it now sort of looks like Michael’s gonna be baby’s daddy to Gloria and David’s baby, which is sort of…weird.

Now, I give this movie a Gerard Butler on my scale because aside from its obvious problems, I’m able to get through it because Ed’s in it. He could seriously film himself sitting in his house, reading from whatever he felt like reading and I’d watch it completely enamored. Lucky for this film he’s in it or it would probably get an Ewan McGregor because I didn’t dislike it enough to warrant a Brad Pitt.