Wicked Blood tells the tale of a teenaged girl in South Louisiana who is mixed up with some very dangerous people, but must use her wits to escape. Hannah (Abigail Breslin) is a very bright girl who finds some respite from her depressing life playing chess with her kind-hearted, yet drug-addicted Uncle Donny (Lew Temple, Walking Dead), while her older sister, Amber (Alexa Vega) is a waitress at a local diner. The girls lost both their parents in recent years, but are watched over by "Uncle Frank" Stinson (Sean Bean), a childhood friend of their mother and a vicious local drug lord. Neither girl likes being around Uncle Frank, but he insists on keeping tabs on the family, especially since Donny runs a meth lab for him. Hannah doesn’t like handouts, and she longs for a better life, so she approaches Uncle Frank about being a courier for his drugs; after all, who would suspect a kid on a bike. Hannah’s plan works and she starts making some money of her own, but then she gets greedy and cuts the drugs she passes on to Frank’s distributors, enraging some of them to the point of murder, which is bad for Frank’s business.

One of Frank’s distributors is a handsome biker/mechanic named "Wild Bill" Owens (James Purefoy, The Following), and it just so happens that Bill and Amber have recently fallen in love. This puts a kink in the works of Frank’s younger psychotic brother, Bobby (Jake Busey), who has a thing for Amber. Once Frank discovers he has been cheated, there will be hell to pay until he discovers who has stolen from him and Bobby is all too happy to act as his enforcer. Hannah feels the noose tightening as she falls under suspicion for the theft, along with Uncle Donny and a number of others. Can she free herself from the Stinson clan once and for all and provide a happy ending for herself, Amber and Uncle Donny or will her attempts merely bring more hurt and death to her family?

Wicked Blood is a pretty good drama/thriller. I was drawn to it because it takes place in Southern Louisiana and I always like to see how a movie portrays my neck of the woods. I am pleased to say that while some of the players in the film weren’t too favorable for Louisiana, crime is everywhere and the portrayal, accents and all, was pretty good. This seems to be more of a "small" film, but it has some fantastic actors in it like Sean Bean, James Purefoy and Abigail Breslin. Everyone in it was spot-on and was very believable, but Jake Busey is a stand-out in his portrayal of Frank’s batscat crazy little brother, Bobby. Special features are slim and only include interviews with some of the actors, but I enjoyed them nonetheless. One of the most interesting aspects to Wicked Blood is the fact that Hannah, as the protagonist, prefaces most major scenes with discussions of chess moves and these moves mirror her attempts at changing her life and essentially, taking down the "King," Uncle Frank. It was great writing and was so intriguing that I had to do some research to make sure I wasn't hearing some bit of poetry or Shakesperean snippet that I should be familiar with, but it was all original for the film. I found it to be an extra layer of polish and depth to the film.

If you like a thriller with an edge to it, give Wicked Blood a watch. The acting is good, the script is interesting with a few unexpected twists and turns, and you can make it into a drinking game, betting on whether or not Sean Bean dies. Seriously, the man dies in almost everything, so it's fair game.