PEPPERMINT (2018) – Review

Though the Summer movie season officially ended with the previous three-day holiday, one big, bombastic “shoot-em-up” is arriving in advance of the serious Fall flicks. This “hard R” action thriller is riding the still new wave of “female-fronted” stunt spectacles that began last year with the surprise (to many studio heads) smash WONDER WOMAN, proving that a superhero saga starring a woman could attract the big box office numbers. A couple of months later, Oscar-winner Charlize Theron took things much further in the very adult, extremely violent tale ATOMIC BLONDE. Near the start of this year, another Best Actress, Jennifer Lawrence, was the lead in the equally bloody and sexy RED SPARROW. Now comes a star who actually earned her action accolades on TV, a dozen years ago on “Alias”, though the last decade or so she’s been a staple of “rom-coms” and domestic dramas. Can she get her martial arts “mojo” back now, not as another superhero or super-spy, but as an angel of vengeance, seeking justice while amassing a very high body count in PEPPERMINT?

The story begins as the quiet of a pre-dawn LA is broken by the strained “shocks” of a car’s that’s seen better days. From the gasps and grunts, we’re thinking “we shouldn’t come a’ knockin’ “. The camera zooms into the interior where we do see a couple getting quite “physical”. A gunshot ends the noise. Exiting the vehicle is a woman, Riley North (Jennifer Garner). “Just how did she get here?”, we’re wondering,  just as the movie shifts into reverse and comes to a halt nearly five years ago to the day. Riley’s a working mother trying to make ends meet along with her husband Chris (Jeff Hephner), who’s the owner of a struggling auto shop. Still they’ve made a wonderful, cozy home for themselves and nine year-old daughter Carly (Cailey Fleming). However, Chris is tempted when one of the mechanics offers him a job as the “wheel man’ in his plan to rip off a drug dealer. But Cailey’s birthday night is a “wake up call” for Chris, who leaves a message on the mechanic’s cell, declining the gig. Too late. Drug kingpin Garcia (Juan Pablo Raba) has gotten wind of the plot, offing Chris’s pal before sending a hit squad to get Chris. The assassins tail the North family car to an outdoor Christmas/Winter carnival. Under the neon light of the ferris wheel, the gang opens fire, killing Chris and Cailey as Riley is seriously wounded. When she awakens in the hospital, sympathetic police detective Carmichael (John Gallagher, Jr.) delivers the bad news. But they’ve picked up some suspects. Riley immediately agrees to pick them out of a line up, which she does without hesitation. After a defense attorney tries to bribe her, Riley throws him out of her home on the eve of the hearing. This turns into a farce, with the Judge releasing the three suspects. When Riley lunges for them, she is restrained and placed into an ambulance bound for a mental hospital. Riley escapes and disappears on the busy streets. And flash forward to today as Carmichael , who’s now spiking his morning coffee with booze (clue) and colleague, Detective Beltran (John Ortiz) are called in to meet with FBI agent Inman (Annie Ilonzeh). They’ve tracked Riley across the globe as she transforms herself into a killing machine, expert in hand-to-hand combat, and skilled in all manner of firearms and explosives. The anniversary of the attack is in the next couple of days. Will Riley take down Garcia and his operation, along with crooked cops and judges in his pocket, and make it a blood red Christmas in Los Angeles?

So has Ms. Garner gotten her action hero “groove” back? Oh, she most assuredly is a force of nature, and retribution, in this flick. Not a “mama grizzly”, more of a “mama T-Rex”. Riley is a stretched out Sarah Conner from T2 mixed with equal parts Pvt. Vasquez and Ripley from ALIENS. Though she’s hyper-focused on “taking out the trash”, Garner brings some vulnerability to her during the quiet moments, when every child becomes her lost daughter. Cailie’s ghost pops up several times, hubby Chris, not at all. On the witness stand, Garner shows us how the barely together mother, not fully healed physically or mentally, completely unravels, realizing that the cards are stacked against her. Plus she gets just as down and dirty as the Rock or Cruise this past Summer. Welcome back from “PG purgatory” and the string of noble, often interchangeable parent roles. I’m sure she’ll do a few more, but let’s hope she gets more parts in this similar mode ( and better written). As for Riley’s “mop up crew” (scouring the aftermath of her “project”), Gallagher is all clean-cut (despite the bushy “porn ‘stashe”), earnest concern in the flashbacks, while in the now, he’s more cynical, less easy to “read”. Ortiz’s Beltrand is pretty much the somber, straight-talker in both timelines, as he tries to hide his admiration for the avenging “angel of Skid Row”. Raba makes a most intimidating villain as the brutal, “iron-fisted” ruler of the underworld, Garcia. No “three strikes”for him, make a foul or error and you’re out…permanently.

Veteran action director Pierre Morel (TAKEN) keeps the tension very taut during the violent set pieces, though the film starts to sputter during the cuts to the cops closing in on Riley. This may be due to the somewhat cliched script by Chad St. John that features “cannon fodder” baddies who strut and grimace as though they were lifted from old episodes of TV’s “Miami Vice”. And because of their ethnicity, the shadow of xenophobia rears its ugly head. Yes, Riley does take out one shady guy that she might have run into at the PTA meeting, but two other “wasp sell-outs” are liquidated off camera (tossed off in a mention by a “G-man”), while Riley mows down a near army of heavily “tatted” Latinos who get the old JOHN WICK, “head shot” treatment. There’s even a huge gun battle in a pinata (?) warehouse (well there were packs of drugs hidden in the candy). And the film makers missed out on a major “crowd pleasin'” scene by not letting us see Riley take down the worst, most smarmy of the “white collar” creeps. Yes, we know it’s a revenge fantasy much like DEATH WISH (the original, not the recent tepid remake), but much of the plot comes off as ham-fisted and silly, particularly the overwrought Skid Row smackdown (yes these gangs are that dumb). Plus the last few seconds nearly scream “franchise” before it fades to black. I’m thinking this might be the only “mission” for this lady “Punisher” (her origin was very close to the recent Netflix Marvel series, only missing the carousel), although it’s a huge step up from Garner’s last revenge seeking character, ELEKTRA (a major Marvel misfire before they had their own studio). This bit of PEPPERMINT is far from refreshing,  leaving a bad aftertaste.

2 Out of 5