Bookshelf Battle

It’s Deathwish with Tits!

BQB here with a review of the vigilante justice film, Peppermint.

Jennifer Garner is one bad mother in this flick, 3.5 readers.  (SPOILERS)

In the early 2010s, life is good for Riley North.  She’s got the typical lower middle class lifestyle.  She and her husband have jobs that are a grind but they get by.  They have a cute daughter, the works.

Alas, all this goes FUBAR when criminals gun down daughter and husband, only to leave J-Gar wounded.

Feeling defeated after the hoodlums go unpunished, Riley goes underground.  She travels the world.  She trains.  She fights.  She learns hand to hand combat.  She learns how to shoot.  How to survive.

And then she brings all that planning back to the US, where she unleashes a fat can of whoop-ass on all her done her wrong.

Admittedly, the movie starts off a little hokey.  The whole part where the justice system fails Riley seems like it was written by a high schooler with a low level understanding of the law, although, if the writers had delved deeper into the legal wranglings, it would have put us to sleep, so I take back my criticism.

At any rate, this is one of those movies that makes you sad in the beginning, then makes you roll your eyes a bit at the hokey-ness, but then…damn.  Just…holy crap.  Jennifer Garner may have slowed down since her Alias days, but she is back, kicking ass and taking names.

Hell, I’m going to predict right here and right now that this movie is J-Gar’s “Taken” moment.  Remember 2010?  Liam Neeson was on his way to obscurity then he did a movie about a man with a particular set of skills and now he’s an action movie extraordinaire?

I think…or at least I hope, that’s what happens for Jen here.  Fuck those Capital One commercials.  J-Gar doesn’t need to ask what’s in your wallet anymore.  That badass bitch can just take your wallet and make you thank her for doing so.

If you can sit through some early writing hackery, it gets good.  So good.  So fun to watch as she hunts everyone down, literally everyone, like all the bad guys, anyone who has ever helped the bad guys, everyone who like, ever gave the bad guys a cookie, even the lawyers and judge and other corrupt officials who helped the bad guys get off on a technicality.

She slices. She dices.  She juliennes.  She blows shit up.  She blows people up.  She shoots.  She scores.  She wracks up a body count that would make Charles Bronson blush.

And that’s what this film basically is.  Deathwish with Tits.  Honestly, if I had been the studio exec on this one, that’s what I would have called this.  “Deathwish with Tits.”  “Peppermint” is ok, but really, it’s misleading.  Someone who just glances at the marquee might think the movie is about a tasty yuletide treat and not a mother’s last good memory of her daughter who happened to be eating peppermint ice cream when evil criminals did their evil criminal deeds.

Sure, there’s room to poke fun.  Jennifer Garner is a hot chick and also, a dignified chick.  She’s a proper lady, damn it.  She’s always carried herself with poise and class.  Thus, at times, she gets messed up while she’s living on the mean streets, so that means, in J-Gar’s world that like, a few hairs are out of place, and you know she brushed the shit out of those hairs as soon as the film was in the can.

Maybe there’s a market these days for vigilante justice movies, I don’t know.  Bruce Willis’ Deathwish remake from earlier this year was universally panned, though loved by this writer, but then again, I love vigilante justice movies.

I suppose there’s a PC argument against this movie.  It’s two hours of a white lady slaughtering impoverished latinos but then again, the universal standard of right and wrong is at play.  In other words, it’s made clear these particular and only these particular latinos did bad and there are other latinos and minorities and people of all races and colors and backgrounds who, from behind the scenes, try to help the woman they refer to as an “angel.”  Yes, rich and poor alike watch the mayhem ensue on social media and cheer the angel along and come to her aid once in awhile.

Still, I’d love it if we could flip the script.  Someone should make a vigilante justice movie where a black character loses his or her family and then shoots down anyone who participated in the evildoery.  Hell, I cheered for Gabby Union when she was kicking the ass of white dudes who were trying to rob and kill her family in “Breaking In,” just as I cheered for J-Gar here.

You know what?  Forget it.  I shouldn’t have even brought up race.  Maybe the SJWs are brainwashing me.  Who knows?

Point is, September is a month where Hollywood’s crappiest movies come out, well, not as bad as January, but still, after summer, you can’t hope for much fun at the box office until November.  This movie was a surprise.

SIDENOTE: There’s a scene where, to show J-Gar is losing focus on taking care of herself and putting her life into her mission, she eats a meal consisting of a swig of vodka and an unwrapped cupcake.  That’s how hot Hollywood actresses slum it, apparently.  Me?  That’s just Monday morning breakfast at BQB HQ.

STATUS:  Shelf-worthy.