PEPPERMINT
US, 2018, 101 minutes, Colour.
Jennifer Garner, John Gallagher Jr, John Ortiz, Juan Pablo Raba, Annie Ilonzeh, Jeff Hephner, Cailey Fleming, Eddie Shin, Method Man.
Directed by Pierre Morel.
As well as the savours of sweetness in peppermints, in peppermint ice cream, there is also the touch of the sharp and the bitter. At a crucial stage in this actioner, a little girl is enjoying a peppermint ice cream when she is killed.
Audiences know from the outset that this is going to be violent film because we see a deadly confrontation, the camera moving in on a shaking car, going inside the car, and Jennifer Garner killing the men within. And then the action moves to 5 years earlier. Explanations, yes. Justifications, perhaps?
The word used for this kind of film is, of course, vigilante. 45 years before Peppermint, Charles Bronson appeared in Death Wish, an ordinary citizen whose wife is raped and killed, who is so emotionally affected that he goes out into the streets to mete out justice, beyond the law. The film made an impact in the 1970s and was followed by several sequels. After that, the vigilante thriller became something of a genre with its particular conventions about crime, victims, revenge, justice, the role of the law, the vigilantes being seen as criminal on the one hand and hero on the other.
And so, Peppermint fits entirely into this genre. Where it is different is that the vigilante is female. Jennifer Garner appeared in the television series in the early 2000s, action lead in Alias (and then followed this as Electra). In the meantime, she has made a number of family films and romantic comedies but here, as Riley, she is more than back in action.
We learn that the villains of the piece are drug lords and drug dealers, merciless and vengeful, no scruples in killing Riley’s husband who had been in invited to be a driver by his partner in a car repair job but who had phoned to refuse.
Riley had been wounded in the attack but had escaped and disappeared for the five years, information then coming in that she had been involved in all kinds of martial arts and training.
Sometimes vigilantes also appear as “avenging angels� and this is what she seems. With expert skills, timing, ability to conceal herself, split-second action, she seems to be cleaning up the city. But, on a bus, she encounters a little boy and gives him a toy, only to find that the drunken father brutally throws the toy away – and she follows him into a store and gives him a lesson in child consideration that he will never forget. It is clear that while she is avenging, she also has the Guardian Angel qualities.
In the past, she had encountered a detective, Carmichael, John Gallagher Jr, as well as his superior, Beltran, John Ortiz. They become involved in completing the work they had been involved in five years earlier, tracking down Riley, working within the law, but not against her bringing down the drug lords, especially in the final violent confrontation where, once again, innocent children are involved, taken as hostage.
Riley is rugged, to say the least, and the film writers know this and provide possibilities for a sequel – and the suggestion would be that she should become part of Special Ops and might find some causes in Afghanistan or the Middle East! (The director is Pierre Morel who has had a successful career in France and in the US in this kind of action thriller, especially the Liam Neeson action thriller, Taken.)
1. A vigilante drama? Female vigilantes? Drug dealers and cartels? Questions of the vigilante as hero, criminal?
2. The Los Angeles setting, homes, garages, fairs and playgrounds, the streets and Skid Row, the drug warehouses, offices, police precincts, mansions? Realistic feel? The musical score?
3. Audience response to vigilante films and action? Emotional response to tragedy and deaths, anger, vengeance and justice, violent retribution? Intellectual response, moral response? Contradictions and complexities?
4. The tone of the opening, the car, the violent struggle, the death, Riley emerging, into the street, the car, her band and living in Skid Row, the children watching?
5. Going back five years, Riley and her daughter, the birthday celebration, the father and his work, the pressure on him to be a drop for the drug deal, the promise of money, his later phone call backing out? The school, Peg and her snobbery and her daughter? Riley and her being dilated the bank, no be at the birthday party, Pegs message and the alternate party, the disappointment, the going to the bed, enjoying everything, they’re being stalked by the criminals, the boss of the motivation, they’re being gunned down, Riley surviving, in the ambulance, Carmichael his concern, her hitting him and escaping?
6. The five year is passing, the film fill in the background, the stealing the money from the bank, disappearing, martial arts training, building up her strength, fostering the vengeance and the quest for Justice? Her return to Los Angeles?
7. The role of the police, Carmichael and Beltran? The continuing on the investigation? Carmichael, dishevelled, drinking? His working on the case, Beltran trying to help? The investigations, the collaboration with the FBI, the agents and their work, African-American? and Asian backgrounds? The shock that Carmichael was betraying the police, in league with the dealers, is trying to cover himself, shooting the FBI agent, his pretence at the end, his being shot? Beltran, sincerity, trying to help?
8. Riley, the scenes of memory of her daughter, the photos, the ghostly presence protecting her? Her ingenuity, hiding, getting cars, buying weapons and being filmed by the CCTV? Taking the toy, Little boy and the bus, her giving it to him, the alcoholic father and his criticising his son, the shop, Riley and her threatening the man about his son?
9. The earlier court sequences, the lawyer visiting Riley in offering her money to forget the killers, his role in the court, the judge, saying there was not enough evidence? Her trying to make a statement, her anger, going from the court?
10. Her vengeance on the judge, tying him up, the nails and his hands, the confrontation, the house exploding?
11. Her attack on the three killers, her hanging them on the town?
12. The boss, his deals with the cartels, the news about the deaths? His henchmen? Riley and her attacking the plant, the killing of the folks, the explosions? Her going to the house, the deaths, confronting the boss? His daughter and taking her? Her going to the warehouse, the tripwire, the explosives, her escaping through the manhole?
13. The buildup to the confrontation, the police getting the information, the footage, understanding her past, the FBI and investigations, Carmichael and his lies about getting information? Carmichael killing the agent?
14. The drug boss, threaten the children in Skid Room, forcing Riley and, her leading him on, time for the police to arrive, confrontations and mayhem, Riley shot, Hospital?
15. Beltran, visiting in hospital, the key, handcuffs – and the potential for a sequel?
16. The emotional impact for vengeance, for Justice, yet the brutality in exercising the vengeance?
