9 BULLETS

US, 2022, 97 minutes, Colour.

Lena Headey, Sam Worthington, Dean Scott Vazquez, Cam Gigandet, LaLa Anthony, Barbara Hershey, Colleen Camp.

Directed by Gigide Gaston.

The central character, Gypsy, says it would take nine bullets to end her life.

This is a chase thriller focusing on Gypsy, game of thrones Lena Headey, who is caught up with a sleazy millionaire gangster, Sam Worthington, pursued by his thugs, witnessing the assassination of a young boy’s parents, finding him and wanting to take him to safety to his Rabbi uncle.

Lena Headey is a strong screen presence – with quite a complicated character, starting off well, intelligent, going to Princeton, raped by a Professor, pregnant, disowned by her father, drinking, her life collapsing, becoming a stripper, becoming involved with the criminal who rescues her. With the memories of her dead child, revealed later in the film, she is very wary of taking up with the little boy, a precocious child, Dean Scott Vazquez, who is handy with computers and knows a lot about bitcoin as well as the financial dealings of his father who had robbed the criminal.

The film moves across several American states from Utah to Montana, to the mansion owned by the criminal, with his latest girlfriend who becomes viciously jealous. Gypsy tries to exercise seductive power on the criminal in order to save the boy.

The various steps along the way, getting some kind of refuge, stealing cars, especially a tangle with another stripper, taking refuge with a friend, played by Barbara Hershey.

There are some shootouts, Gypsy wounded, but delivering the boy to his uncle.

This is something of an equivalent straight-to-video action film, but not particularly well received, especially by the comments on the IMDb blog.