JADE is a 2025 indie action movie that’s pretty derivative and very messy but kinda fun. It’s clearly made by a bunch of stunt people having a good time and not taking themselves too seriously, so it’s hard to be mad at. It’s a vehicle for Shaina West, who was in BLACK WIDOW, THE WOMAN KING, THE KILLER’S GAME and a The Weeknd video. According to her websight she’s a self-trained martial artist and “a real life superhero” called “Samurider.” (I think this is a character she dresses up as at Comic-Cons? I don’t think she’s saying she’s a vigilante.) She’s also credited as the stunt double for herself.

She plays Jade, who the opening narration explains moved here from London when she was 13 and became part of a “Club” but accidentally shot her brother to death so she left the Club and swore to never pick up a gun again. Since the DVD cover shows her with a sword I was pretty excited about this detail. I’m more into action heroes who don’t rely on guns, and it’s even better when it’s a conscious preference.

Jade comes back into town to see Layla (Katherine McNamara, KAPPA KAPPA DIE), who is pregnant with her late brother’s baby and hasn’t forgiven her for what happened. (Yeah, no shit, that means it was less than nine months ago. The narrator was glossing over some things in my opinion.)

As Jade is leaving some old Club friend named Logan (stuntman Mathew Yanagiya) pulls up in a car and convinces her to take a hard drive that is causing someone to shoot at him. She doesn’t want it but for some reason she lets him talk her into it. Not the best judgment on this Jade.

We don’t know much about Jade but we do know she looks very cool with a big fro and a jacket that says “EXCELLENCE” over a panther face. When she takes it off she has what Mrs. Vern said was a good sports bra that provides support while showing off her ripped abs. She also has some sensible sneakers which is good because she has many opportunities to run. There are lots of long takes as she moves through warehouses with (digital) bullets flying from somewhere, hitting around her. I was definitely feeling a video game influence long before the part where she kills a guy and it says “FATALITY!”

She hides the drive before being captured along with Logan, who is tortured and killed in front of her. Various parties are trying to get the drive, many for a crime boss named Tork, played by Mickey Rourke (1941). As you can imagine it’s another role where he smokes cigars and wears a meshy rock star shirt like he would wear at home. On the positive side, he’s in different scenes and locations, it’s not one of the ones like TAKE BACK where it seems like they only shot him for an afternoon and then tried to stretch out what they had like Charlie Bucket making a Wonka Bar last a whole year. On the other hand he doesn’t have a chance to get emotional. I’ve always liked that even in his paycheck movies he’ll sometimes really go for it and cry and stuff.

She tries a pretty smart trick where she tells them she’ll show them where the drive is hidden but instead brings them to Ortiz (stuntman Marcus Vincios Maciel) and tells him these guys killed Logan. We know Ortiz is a serious crime boss because he’s introduced snorting multiple lines of cocaine with a glass of whiskey, an open suitcase of money and a lady dancing sexily next to him and a minute later he’s smoking weed. I was hoping he would shoot up or take some pills too but I don’t think he had time for everything. Anyway, she ignites a big gun fight.

She almost gives the drive to Reese (Mark Dacascos, BLADE OF THE 47 RONIN), an Interpol agent who she hasn’t seen since she was 13 when he took her off the streets and trained her to fight. Unfortunately we don’t see him do any martial arts, but he gets to be emotional and also be in a shootout (I’m pretty sure he’s the only person in the movie who knows how to aim). He actually is trustworthy, but she has to ditch him when Tork abducts Layla and demands the drive as ransom.

At times it seems like they’re just making stuff up as they go along. Otherwise why open by saying she vowed to never pick up a gun again, then reveal that that was less than a year ago, then have her pick up a gun again and not seem too bothered by it? She’s like someone who makes a huge deal out of quitting smoking and then it lasts for like a week. Oh well. At least she uses the sword at the same time as the gun, so she doesn’t look like a total loser.

As you may be able to gather this is all made up of familiar cliches, some enjoyable. Some of the connective tissue between tropes is awkward, like when she’s tied up and the guy guarding her starts trying out of nowhere to do the knife-between-the-fingers trick (like Bishop in ALIENS) but gives up after about two seconds and then she easily talks him into untying one of her wrists and giving her a knife to show him how to do it. There is just no part of this set up that makes any sense at all, but of course we appreciate the pay off of her stabbing him. We’re not monsters.

But this is all about being a showcase for West, and that it pulls off pretty well. There’s a high volume of fast-paced action, and she’s also a pretty natural actor/screen presence with some decent smart ass banter, like when she calls her captor “uncultured” for not knowing what PASSENGER 57 is. The filmatism is very eager, lots of pretty complicated camera moves, lots of gimmicks like 3D subtitles, a cool split screen with a sword dividing the two sides, some anime style motion lines in one part, some nice stylized lighting. Random inconsequential things will occasionally be presented in fast, whooshing insert shots like the suiting up montage in EVIL DEAD 2. I strongly suspect they threw the word “grindhouse” around liberally while they were making it, but I’m not mad at it. In my opinion you shouldn’t use the Hattori Hanzo vibration sound in a non-KILL BILL, but you should have a badass lady run around with a sword chopping up a whole bunch of goons, so overall it’s a win. I was thinking it had kind of a film student feel, in the sense that the gimmicks are undisciplined and sometimes distracting but the enthusiasm and effort are endearing. Whatever its flaws it never feels technically lazy, and that makes it stand out from much of the off brand low budget action stuff these days.

One example of visible elbow grease: the narrated prologue I mentioned is animated, and it’s very limited animation (as these things always are) but it’s well designed, it looks cool (as these things almost never do).

So I can forgive when the narrative is incoherent, but I gotta make fun of it a little. Maybe a third of the way in the mysterious narrator is revealed to be one of these two cops who are following her. (I’m not clear which one.) Those guys have some comical banter and then go after two other guys who seem like gangsters but pull out badges and shoot them. The narrator says something like “Bet you didn’t see that coming!,” I assumed as a joke about being able to narrate while dead, but later we hear that those guys were crooked and are now in prison?

The craziest part is at the end (BIG TIME ENDING SPOILERS) because when it seems to be over Jade reveals that she still has the drive, previously said to be destroyed during the climactic fight, and she gives it to Layla. Layla immediately walks over to a car and hands it to Tork, then pulls off her fake pregnancy belly (shout out to TAKING LIVES) and kisses some lady on a pink scooter? Then Jade is hiding behind a tree looking sad about the betrayal so she goes and brings the real drive to Reese.

I’m really not clear why Layla was pretending to be pregnant, and was so dedicated to it that she happened to be wearing the fake belly when Jade showed up at her apartment unannounced for the first time in months, or how she knew Jade was going to give her the drive (so sure of it that Tork was waiting for it nearby), or why Jade is surprised by the betrayal but knew to give her a fake drive? Or what the drive would’ve even been supposed to be for if it was real – why give the dangerous item to the pregnant non-combatant? I’m not sure any of it makes sense but I’m also not sure it would be preferable to make sense. I hope they make part 2.

Director James Bamford is a long time stunt performer and coordinator – in fact, he doubled Rourke in GET CARTER. He started his directing career on super hero shows (Supergirl, Arrow, Batwoman, Superman & Lois), and apparently McNamara is from those shows. JADE is one of Bamford’s seven movies released since last year (along with AIR FORCE ONE DOWN, SHADOW LAND, HARD HOME, UTOPIA, MAN WITH NO PAST and HIGH GROUND). He wrote it along with Lynn Colliar (who has played news reporters in WATCHMEN, SEE NO EVIL 2 and many more) and Glenn Ennis (who wrote GNOME ALONE, played Hooded Justice in WATCHMEN, doubled Jason in FREDDY VS. JASON and the bear in THE REVENANT).