Peppermint

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When her husband and daughter are killed in a drive-by shooting, Riley North (played by Jennifer Garner) seeks vengeance against her family’s killers after she sees the corruption of the justice system. I can’t help but feel that the use of flashbacks was pointless. A good chuck of the first act of the film is told through flashback, while the film’s opening scene is in the present. It isn’t something I found particularly awful, but it I just found it unnecessary. The film is directed by Pierre Morel (the same man who directed Taken and The Gunman). Some of Morel’s direction in the film can be distracting. It almost comes off as though he’s trying to be edgy. Riley herself is probably the only character who feels like she’s got some development to her. The lack of development feels especially noticeable when it comes to the movie’s villains. They are just evil for the sake of being evil. I don’t really have much of a problem with this, but still think it is worth addressing. It also kind of bugged me that there was never really a moment where Riley wasn’t on top of things. I bring this up because it can be hard to feel invested if you never really fear for the protagonist’s safety. And yet, for all this movie’s problems (and believe me, this movie has a lot of problems) I still kind of dug it. The first thing I really want to compliment is the performances in the movie. First, there’s John Gallagher, Jr. He plays a cop who is on the Riley North case. It helps that the movie establishes that Gallagher’s character is actually the one who approached Riley North to potentially be an eyewitness. However, it really is Jennifer Garner herself that proves to be the film’s standout. I buy pretty much every aspect of her performance, whether it’s the badass vigilante or the grieving mother. The action scenes are decent. The actual action never really has a chance to get super creative, nor do the locations of the action sequences. However, they are handled well-enough. The movie was also well-paced. This flick clocks in at around an hour and 40 minutes, and never has a moment that drags. I didn’t expect a masterpiece out of Peppermint, but I was kind of surprised that I got a solid-enough action movie out of my time. I can say that this is not a movie that everybody is going to like, but I had some fun with it.

6 / 10