Peppermint (2018)
I haven’t seen Jennifer Garner in anything in a very long time. In an era of violent action films, it seems pretty clear that Garner was hoping that her own violent action film “Peppermint” (2018) would revitalize her career.
I can honestly say that I don’t think this was her ticket.
The bad guy is a violent Mexican gang leader, because zeitgeist politics will always find its way into Hollywood films.
I get it: real-life MS-13 is party to some horrifying gang violence, but Mexican gangs are so rarely the villains in movies that it really stands out in an era of films where Russians, North Koreans, and CGI aliens are the baddies of choice.
And they gave the Mexican villain the most Mexican sounding name ever bestowed on a Pacific island: Diego Garcia.
So super evil Diego shows his love for violence by killing a dude who he never met, who never did anything to him, inciting violence based on nothing more than a rumor.
In fact, one gang member (apparently) spontaneously finds the guy, calls the boss, who sends out an entirely different hit crew, who find the mark in a totally unrelated location. No pictures exchanged, no descriptions, nothing. The bad guys must all be psychic.
There were some fun tropes in this movie:
There’s an “I’m too old for this shit” cop and his partner, “I’m extra affected by this crime” rookie.
There’s also a ‘Chekhov’s Gun’ where one cop tells another “Be careful, Diego has a mole inside the police!” Now, it didn’t turn out to be who I thought it was, but they still telegraphed it pretty hard.
A few shitty crime solving “forensic” myths were perpetuated
The court system was made out to be the bad guy for upholding the “innocent until proven guilty” thing because it was convenient for the plot
Some scenes had characters that just...appeared, and divulged random plot points or “character development,” for no other reason than to move the story forward in lurching fits and starts.
Bullets were conveniently blocked by not-bullet-proof things when the heroine needed to not get shot
Computers were inevitably used to magically suss out solutions to questions that absolutely weren’t designed to be answered by silicone processors
Silencers for guns turned the firing volume from “boom sticks” into “ladybug farts”
The initial plot point that got the movie rolling was “let’s do some sketchy grey operation to get money because we’re poor, but we’re also white, which means the audience will root for us. Also we’re convenient Every-Man stand-ins in a country where everybody believes they’re going to win the lottery and be rich one day.”
Garner’s character, while clearly established that she is from a family that is barely squeaking by, manages to fund multiple international travel opportunities and buys some fairly expensive paramilitary toys.
Multiple scenes reference a crime in 2012, while the story takes place “five years later” in...2018?
They must have forgotten to hire a guy to review the script for continuity.
While it’s clear that Garner is a “woman with nothing to lose” style vigilante, some of her actions aren’t really “good,” and they easily cross the line into straight-up “murderous crazy person” territory, making her hard to root for.
Her character was unfortunately unpolished.
I watched this movie on a recommendation from a friend that this would be just like “The Equalizer,” but with a woman instead of Denzel Washington.
And, yeah, it certainly feels like someone tried to use “The Equalizer” as their inspiration, but must have missed a few critical classes during film school and ignored the story telling points that made the other movie so good.
The director left the ending ‘open ended,’ clearly in the hopes that they’d make enough money to green-light a sequel.
Something tells me they didn’t nail that one.
I do have one kudos to give: the movie started in the ‘present,’ then used an outstanding transition to the ‘past’ to explain what happened to Garner’s family, so when the movie transitioned back to the ‘present’ again there weren’t any lost threads or confusing “wait, how did that...” type moments.
Ultimately, this was...tolerable.
If you’re a fan of violent shoot-em-up-Tony flicks, you’ll enjoy this, but it wasn’t great, and I’m glad I saw it as a rental instead of in theaters.
“The Equalizer” or “John Wick” (both from 2014) will scratch your “violent gunplay” itch better.
