2018 has finally given us a decent remake of Death Wish and it isn’t the remake of Death Wish. Peppermint isn’t actually just a copy of Death Wish (or a million other vigilante movies), but somehow remakes the entire Death Wish series. I’ve noted before that that series starts with a somber, serious film and then gradually transforms into cartoonish violence in the latter films. Peppermint starts out fairly serious, like the original Death Wish, then quickly switches to the insanity of Death Wish 3/4/5. This is a messy, uneven film. But it’s also a lot of stupid fun.
Jennifer Garner takes a break from asking me what’s in my wallet to play Riley North, a woman whose husband and daughter are gunned down by a gang when leaving a carnival. Somewhat oddly, the film’s title refers to the flavor of ice cream that the daughter gets right before she is killed; I would think that rocky road, the flavor that the mom gets, would have been a more meaningful title. Anyway, the killers aren’t found guilty because of corrupt cops and judges, so Riley steals a page from Bruce Wayne’s playbook: she disappears for a few years, becomes an expert at martial arts and weapons in a shockingly small period of time and returns to fuck shit up. How did a minivan-driving mom go from trying to sell girl scout cookies to being a complete badass able to elude all forms of government surveillance in only a couple of years? Take your logic out of here, we have assholes to kill.
There is a lot in this movie that doesn’t make any fucking sense. As I mentioned, I don’t buy this character as a badass at all. There is a major subplot about her taking over a large section of the city (I think it’s L.A., but not sure) and essentially becoming their guardian angel to the point that there are huge murals of her. It’s never explained why or how this happened, especially in such a short period of time. She steals a shit load of military-grade weapons (machine guns, high-capacity shotguns and grenades) from a gun store in California, which tells me that the screenwriter learned about gun ownership by watching CNN. Aside from the massive plot holes, much of the script is just cobbled-together clichés. The villains are a Mexican Drug cartel that we’ve seen a million times and lack any sort of personality. The corrupt cops and judges are also more of the same (though I give the film credit for some misdirection on the corrupt cop’s identity). The ending is ripped from a hundred other vigilante films and can be seen from a mile away. It’s also odd that she kills the people that actually killed her family very quickly and the majority of the film is about her going after their bosses. It’s fairly anticlimactic in that regard.
So, its stupid. But I love stupid, violent revenge movies and this movie delivers on its stupid fucking promises. This movie commits to being fucking stupid. It owns it and doesn’t care about its complete lack of social or artistic value. I respect that. This movie is about Jennifer Garner murdering the shit out of douchebags. Director Pierre Morel knows how to make this nonsense, having previously made the original Taken, From Paris with Love and The Gunman, officially making him the last director whose family you should fuck with. Garner cuts through this gang like Rambo on a bender and it’s a lot of fun to watch. I’m having trouble articulating why I like this movie and it just boils down to personal taste: either you like exploitive revenge movies or you don’t. I do and I dug this shit.
Look, I know that this is objectively not a good film. The characters are stale, the performances (other than Garner) aren’t noteworthy and the plot is complete nonsense. But its still a violent good time. It doesn’t quite reach the batshit-crazy heights of Death Wish 3 or The Exterminator, it doesn’t have the artistic value of Taxi Driver and it doesn’t have the sleaze of old woman-revenge movies like Ms. 45 or I Spit on Your Grave. But, for 2018, this is about as much as I can hope for from a movie like this. If you like Death Wish 3, then see this. If you haven’t seen Death Wish 3, then watch that first to determine if you have the sophisticated pallet needed to enjoy Peppermint.
Image By: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peppermint_(2018_film)#/media/File:Peppermint.png
