Peppermint

Peppermint

Starring Jennifer Garner, John Gallagher Jr., John Ortiz, Juan Pablo Raba

Directed by Pierre Morel

The Story:
Middle-class suburban mother Riley North (Jennifer Garner) is enjoying life with her loving husband Chris (Jeff Hephner) and ten-year-old daughter Carly (Cailey Fleming), and they decide to go to the winter carnival for Carly's birthday.  There, three gang members gun down the family in cold blood, and only Riley survives.

She quickly identifies the three men, but they belong to a gang led by the notorious Diego Garcia (Juan Pablo Raba), and he has his hooks everywhere - including the judicial system and police force.  The three men get off, and Riley disappears, much to the dismay of detectives Carmichael (John Gallagher, Jr.) and Beltran (John Ortiz).

Five years later, on the anniversary of their murders, Riley returns to Los Angeles to get her revenge against Garcia and all the corrupt officials and policemen who covered up the crime.  While the press and the poor praise her, the detectives try to find her to bring her to justice - but in a world of mixed up justice, who's really in the right?

The Synopsis:
While films like this have been done a thousand times before, it's rare to find a revenge film that features a female lead.  Typically, the husband witnesses the murders of his wife and child and goes on a rampage (such as "Death Wish"), but here it's time for the woman to shine, and the result is a unique spin on an otherwise cliche-ridden movie that would've been easily forgotten if not for the stellar performance of Jennifer Garner.  Apart from her, the film is riddled with classic cliches - such as the gang being Latino, underestimating the female heroine because she's female, having the bad guy be a cocky son-of-a-gun despite having most of his men die at the hands of the hero, and so on.

The film reminded me of the classic 80s action revenge films, witnessing set piece after set piece of brutal hardcore street justice being dished out, which of course is satisfying and fulfilling, even if there's not a major story there.  We don't go to films like this to be treated to a highly cerebral tale - we want to see some butt-kicking, and Garner more than delivers.

Jennifer Garner - who rose to prominence starring in the action-packed series "Alias" - returns to her action roots as Riley North, but she also plays to her dramatic strengths as well.  Before she becomes a vengeance-fueled vigilante, she was a doting mother and wife, who would skip work to help her daughter sell Girl Scout cookies, which makes the murders all the more tragic.  You really feel for Riley after seeing her family eradicated, and it left a lasting impression on my mind.  What makes "Peppermint" better is the fact that she didn't immediately turn from Martha Stewart to Wonder Woman overnight, but she went off the grid for five years where she trained in all sorts of combat techniques and weapons to eventually return and get her much-needed revenge.  Yet even as she spent that time training, she's still not a completely polished fighter.  She gets as many hits as she gives, but her inner strength is fueled by her thirst for revenge, leading her to stand back up and keep moving forward.  Garner relishes in this type of role, and completely owns the performance on both ends.

There were a couple issues I had with the film, one of which I mentioned earlier with the fact that it's very cliche and stereotypical.  The gang is Latino, there's a mole in the police force, and so on - but it doesn't ultimately matter, because we all know how a film like this will play out.  At least, that's what I expected.

This gets to the biggest thing I have against the film - it feels like I was watching "Peppermint 2: The Return" instead of "Peppermint."  She takes care of the three gang members, and pretty much all the other people who did her dirty, off-screen and rather quickly.  I would've liked to see their moments more in-depth and personal, but they were merely tossed off like supporting characters.  There could've been a lot done to tell the story of Riley's revenge against these men, because ultimately they were the ones most responsible for her family's death, but the film focused more on Garcia - the main baddie who wasn't even there when the murders occurred.  I felt like I was watching the sequel - when the hero finally dispatches the final gun-toting low-life and turns to the camera and says, "you're next" before the sequel begins.  I would've liked to see her dish out the justice on those closest to the events that happened, but still the vengeance she does reap is gruesome and violent, so that's still a plus.

What the film really does after the end is beg the question: is vigilante justice right?  Obviously, the law says you can't go out and get revenge yourself, and there's several factors in life that prove you should never do it, but "Peppermint" seems to glorify vigilante justice, serving as Riley's only sense of justice.  There's a bad guy in the police force, so any investigation wouldn't happen.  The judge, and the district attorney are also on the bad guys' payroll, so they refused to hear anything that would result in real justice being served.  Here, it seems that the only true justice is the one you take yourself, and Riley is hailed as an angel to the downtrodden and poor - the ones the police often forget about.  Is it right to take matters into your own hands?  Probably not, but after seeing "Peppermint," you might be prone to change your mind on that.

The Summary:
Despite offering a cliche-ridden tale and lack of visual satisfaction, "Peppermint" is still an exciting, stylish vengeance film with the much-welcomed return of Jennifer Garner doing what she does best.

The Score: A-