Everly, film review: Grisly exploitation pic is a deadening and claustrophobic experience

(18) Joe Lynch, 90 mins. Starring: Salma Hayek, Jennifer Blanc, Togo Igawa

Salma Hayek appears to have picked up an ability to use guns and knives

It is hard not to get an acute case of cabin fever during this grisly exploitation pic, set almost entirely in an apartment. Salma Hayek's Everly is first seen bloodied and beaten, hiding in a bathroom as her attackers wait outside.

The plot is sketched in very cursory fashion. She's some kind of escort/slave, who has been held in captivity by Taiko, a sadistic human trafficker. Somehow, Everly appears to have picked up Bruce Lee-style martial-arts skills and an ability to use guns and knives along the way.

For 90 minutes, we see her repelling wave after wave of Taiko's thugs. "I am nobody's bitch," is her motto. The bloodletting becomes increasingly tiresome and repetitive. Lynch shows some visual flair with a few clever, Tarantino-like touches but the film overall is a deadening and claustrophobic experience, in which the human interest diminishes as rapidly as the body count rises.