Director: Aaron Harvey
Writer: Aaron Harvey (Screenplay)
Starring: Frank Grillo, Luke Grimes, Marguerite Moreau, Robert Taylor, James Badge Dale, Brady Smith
Plot: Nick escapes his criminal past and 2 partners, gets a steady job, a friend at work and marries the sheriff’s daughter. But his past catches up with him, when his ex-partners track him down and want their share of the loot.
Runtime: 1 Hour 38 Minutes
There may be spoilers in the rest of the review
Story: Into the Ashes starts when Sloan (Grillo) gets released from prison, he is joined by his former partners Charlie (Cade) and Bruce (Peat) as he goes in search for their former partner, Nick (Grimes) who has started his own life, a clean life with a wife Tara (Moreau), working an honest job.
When Sloan catches up with Nick, he kills Tara and leaves Nick for dead, forcing Nick to go out on one more criminal mission to get revenge against Sloan to try and redeem himself.
Thoughts on Into the Ashes
Characters & Performances – Nick Brenner is a former criminal who has turned his life on the back on the life of crime to live a straight and normal life, settling down, getting a job and getting married. His past does come back to haunt him, seeing him uses his connection to track down the people that took everything from him. Luke Grimes shows us how the former criminal will always be looking over his shoulder and will be able to change to go back into that life. Sloan is the man who is fresh out of prison, he has one objective, to find the man who left him to take the fall, he brings the rest of his crew together to go in search of Nick and will do anything to get his money back. Frank Grillo makes this character standout through the film, bringing the darker side of a criminal mind to life. Robert Taylor plays the local sheriff that has never been fond of Nick after he marries his daughter and is left with the difficult decision on how to deal with everything going on in his town.
Story – Into the Ashes has a story that follows a man that has cleaned up his life only for his criminal past to come back and haunt him, causing him to turn to his criminal side for revenge. This story does bring us everything we would expect for a revenge film, it does give us an idea of what has happened, before showing us, which gives the major scenes a rewind feeling, instead of just showing us what is happening. We don’t get anything new though, with this just being another one that fills in the blanks for what we would expect.
Themes – Into the Ashes brings us the action we have seen before, tight confined shoot outs, which will hide the major impacts, showing us more of the aftermath, with the settings being used to show us just how the small town would operate with a change in it.
Final Thoughts – Into the Ashes is a by the book action thriller, offering little new, but doing nothing wrong.