British martial artist and stunt performer Shaina West (she was one of the assassins in Black Widow and also appeared in The Woman King) graduates to star with the title role of this pulpy, retro action flick. Her Jade is an English ex-pat who has been stranded in some nondescript US town for a little while, still mourning the death of her brother, who was killed in an overly complicated backstory, laid out in a big chunk of animated screen time before the titles come up.
Once that exposition dump is finished, director James Bamford (a stunt coordinator by trade) and the team get stuck in to the kicking, hand-chopping, stabbing and shooting stuff as Jade is persuaded to hide a mysterious hard drive for a soon-to-be murdered friend from her gang days. She gets captured but makes light work of escaping as she thwacks and hacks her captors, henchmen employed by big-boss big-bad Tork (Mickey Rourke, texting his performance in, one laconic barely discernible emoji at a time.)
One might be tempted to describe West as rocking her huge natural hairdo, but rocking doesn’t do justice to its glorious volume; it is practically a supporting character in its own right, and one that calls to black heroines of yore, such as Pam Grier’s Foxy Brown and Tamara Dobson’s Cleopatra Jones back in the 1970s. Furthermore West has a nice way with a quip and has presence to spare, so while the script doesn’t exactly stretch her acting range, she holds the screen. The rest of the cast seems to be made up of former stunt performers grabbing the chance to speak a few lines for a change, so West’s performance can easily outshine the lot. That said, it’s a pleasure to hang out for a while with Steven Michael Quezada, who played Gomez in Breaking Bad, before his character is dispensed with; he has fine skills with comic banter, displayed here in a minor role playing a bad guy.
• Jade is on UK digital platforms from 24 June.
