The Method

Anna Vaughn, star of this fun if flimsy thriller from Quirk (Inside Threat), is a B-list actor slumming it in TV action dramas. She knows how to handle fake guns and pull her punches, but when her friend Natalie doesn’t return from a night of bar-hopping in New York City, she vows to use her fists for real. Her doggedness attracts the attention of FBI agent Kevin Matthews, who’s also looking for Natalie and agrees to give Anna a crash course in personal protection if she’ll help the Bureau with its investigation. Soon, Anna is kicking and head-butting her way through an underworld of paid muscle, creepy hit men, and Arab oligarchs with bizarre sexual fixations like Crown Prince Aslan, who hails from a country called the Republic. Just as Anna is about to rescue Natalie, it dawns on her that Matthews may not be who he claims. The plot has holes—Aslan’s intentions are muddy at best, as is a subplot concerning Anna’s troubled sister—but it moves with the exuberance Quirk is known for, which is almost enough to paper over the implausibility of Anna’s overnight transformation from actress to guerrilla fighter. Though it’s far from the author’s best, this has its pleasures. Agent: Don Conaway, Writers House. (Jan.)