YOU WILL KNOW WHEN YOU are experiencing an acute stress response. It is a physiological reaction that happens when you feel threatened; a real threat where you feel you may get attacked or seriously hurt. The reaction stimulates the pituitary and adrenal glands which releases hormones that have an immediate effect on your body’s systems. A few of the changes that takes place involve an increase in blood pressure, faster heart and lung activity, the constriction of blood vessels in parts of the body and tunnel vision or the loss of peripheral vision. All of this prepares your body to either fight or take flight; it is how animals survive in the wild. The amount of energy you will expend might surprise you. This is not something I hope you experience in your lifetime; trust me, it will take time to recover from such an episode. I remember when I was in a situation where I thought I was going to be severely beaten and my body immediately went on fight/flight mode. The tunnel vision thing happened to me as I ran faster than I had ever done before for at least 3-4 city blocks, trying to escape my attackers. Once I felt I was out of harm’s way my body slowed down and I realized I was drenched in sweat.      IN MY FITNESS CLASSES I always try to add a short period of time devoted to anaerobic activity. Anaerobic means occurring without free oxygen, pushing the body to function at a quicker pace; just like the body reacting during an acute stress response. High caliber athletes train in a similar way so they have a deeper reserve of energy to tap into when they need to kick it up a gear. The reason I do this is so a person is prepared or has a better chance if they ever find themselves in a situation that appears to be life threatening. I do not announce that in class, simply coax members gently to push a little harder. There was a news report some years ago that I may have mentioned before, but it is still as clear in my memory as when it was first on the news. A driving accident took place and a person was pinned underneath the car. The passengers wedged themselves out of the car and lifted it high enough to move the victim out. I believe one of the passengers was a mother who was the first to spring into action after the crash, that primal instinct bursting forth. You are not familiar with that force? Then feel free to watch the mother in this thriller.      WITH HER CHILDREN BEING HELD HOSTAGE by four burglars; would Shaun Russell’s, played by Gabrielle Union (Deliver Us from Eva, Think Like a Man franchise) primal instinct to protect her children be more than a match for these criminals? With Billy Burke (Fracture, The Twilight Saga franchise) as Eddie, Richard Cabral (End of Watch, Walk of Shame) as Duncan, Ajiona Alexus (Acrimony, Empire-TV) as Jasmine and Seth Carr (Black Panther, Terminator Genisys) as Glover; this film’s saving grace was Gabrielle. I was both impressed and surprised how good she was in the role. Her performance reminded me a little of Charlize Theron in Atomic Blonde. However, the script for this thriller failed to deliver anything new. I thought the character Eddie’s dialog was so unemotional that there was no sense of him being sinister, though the character Duncan did his best to be the ”crazy” one. And that was my issue about this picture; it was so basic and predictable that I was getting bored. It is sad for all the physical work Gabrielle put into this movie the rewards could not have been better. I wish some of that primal energy had been devoted to making the script more intense.

1 ¾ stars