Protector - Blu-ray Review

[Michael Scott]

Protector



Movie:
Video:
Audio:
Extras:
Final Score:

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Movie
OK, I knew from the second I got this review disc that the film was going to be a stinker. Low budget film from a low budget studio, with a direct to video known director, AND Milla Jovovich. That last bit hurts to say it, but I have to admit that it's true. Milla was a fan favorite for sooooooooooo many years, able to pull off the female action hero in ways that most women could only dream of. She was fast, agile, limber as all get out, and she put her heart and soul into the action sequences. Even if the movie was a stinker, you could always rely on Milla for being one of the best parts of it. Plus, I was a rabid addict of The Fifth Element and the Resident Evil films for the longest time. But after the last film in the franchise, Milla faded off into the sunset as Hollywood no longer found her a viable leading lady. Lately she’s been riding on the occasional DTV directed by her husband Paul (the pulpy, “fun” one of the famous Anderson trio) only to vanish again for a year or so. This time it’s a straightforward action movie in the vein of Taken, where an ex-special forces mother has to get her daughter back from traffickers.

Protector is a non-stop progression of fight sequences, starting out with a montage of ex-special ops soldier Nikki Halsted (Milla Jovovich) tearing people apart overseas. Jump forward a bit, and we’re in the present with Nikki struggling to reconnect with her daughter, Chloe (Isabel Myers), who resents her mother for spending so much time overseas. Her father has recently died, and Nikki’s attempts to throw Chloe a birthday party fall on deaf ears. But things change for the worse when Chloe sneaks out of her room that night to meet her friends at a local bar (and of course engage in some underage drinking). Sadly, Nikki arrives just as Chloe has been drugged and transferred to a car by a local gang of traffickers known as “The Syndicate” (yeah, I know. Super clever name here).

Waking up the next morning, Nikki goes on a one-woman rampage across the city looking for her daughter. Slaughtering her way across the state of New Mexico as she takes out Syndicate members left and right, Nikki finally finds her daughter, only for Chloe to get recaptured by the Syndicate once more. Now, hunted by the Las Cruces police department, her commanding officer, Colonel Lavelle (Matthew Modine), and the remaining Syndicate members, Nikki does what she does best. Shred the opposition.

Protector is 100% a paint-by-the-numbers DTV action film. Jovovich is a pro at this type of role and can do it in her sleep. And frankly, it actually looks like she is sleepwalking through it. There are moments where it really looks like Jovovich is giving it her all, but there are a lot of scenes where you can see her trying to interject some gravitas into the situation as best she can and failing miserably. The story itself starts as a straight-up Taken clone, but after the halfway point, where Chloe is found and recaptured, the story starts to feel stale and rote. It’s almost like we’re reliving the same moments that brought us to that point. And then the final act twist in the last 10 minutes. I’m not going to spoil it for you, but needless to say, it was SUPPOSED to be a clever twist that showed we were watching everything from an unreliable narrator, but it ends up being patently stupid and silly. I get what they were going for, but the execution just wasn’t there.

And let's not forget this is a super low budget DTV film, and the dialog is so painful I about took some Percocet to counter it. There’s a sequence where D.B. Sweeney actually attacks Colonel Lavelle, and holy cow, that dialog is straight out of 1990s DTV films. But whatever, this is about as big of a snooze fest as you can get, so even some unintentional levity isn’t a horrible thing.




Rating:

Not Rated by the MPAA




Video:

I’m sure this is going to TOTALLY shock the readers, but IMDB and other online sources have almost no information whatsoever on the filming of this movie. Looking at it objectively, I’d hazard a guess that we’re looking at a digital shoot with a 2K master, but that’s simply guessing based on how it looks in motion. The image is crisp and clear, with a strong sense of detail all the way around, except for a few shots here and there that look strangely noisy and soft. But other than those few moments here and there, the 2.39:1 framed AVC encode looks amazingly clean and bright. The whites of the snow and uniforms pop off the screen, as do the deep blacks when Dean and his father are conversing in their shadowy home. I didn’t see much banding or other major artifacting, so overall this is one impressive-looking disc.








Audio:

The audio track is a bit better, with a hot running mix that puts a lot of emphasis on LFE and punchiness. I will say this, though. The mix is a bit of a blunt instrument, with the LFE leaning towards being one-note-ish, and the surrounds doing a good job, but never stellar. But at the end of the day, this is a DTV audio mix with hot low end, decent dialog, and surrounds that do the job. It won’t be amazing, but it’s a fun and boisterous mix.










Extras:

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Final Score: ​

Protector is a silly film, and one that really isn’t that good even for DTV fans like myself who can live with a certain amount of slop. It’s just something to watch and forget by the time the credits stop rolling. Magenta’s Blu-ray looks kinda “meh,” and there are no extras on board, but at least the sound is pretty good. My personal opinion is that this is a “skip it” type of situation unless you really love Milla Jovovich.


Technical Specifications:

Starring: Milla Jovovich, Matthew Modine, D.B. Sweeney, Isabel Myers
Directed by: Adrian Grunberg
Written by: Bong-Seob Mun
Aspect Ratio: 2.39:1 AVC
Audio: English: DTS-HD MA 5.1
Subtitles: English SDH
Studio: 92
Rated: NR
Runtime: 92 Minutes
Blu-ray Release Date: June 2nd, 2026

Recommendation: Skip It