![]() ![]() Meanwhile, Riley drowns Goldman in his pool, burns Henderson alive in his house, and kills the now-retired Stevens in an explosion. Video footage reveals that she was recently involving in a theft of multiple "military-grade" firearms from a gun shop. Living on a string of false identities, she has been traveling throughout Europe and Asia, studying combat and military tactics. The killings attract the attention of FBI Agent Lisa Inman, who informs the detectives that Riley robbed her bank and used the money to travel abroad. Before her ambulance can leave, she fights her way out and escapes.įive years later, Beltran and Carmichael arrive at the carnival to find the men who killed Riley's family hanging from a Ferris wheel. Outraged, Riley is subdued while attacking her family's killers in court, and is committed to a psychiatric ward. Judge Stevens dismisses the case, and the prosecutor, Goldman, does nothing in response. When Riley refuses to take his bribe, he uses her anti-psychotic medication to portray her as unreliable in court. Prior to the preliminary hearing, Riley is visited by Henderson, a cartel lawyer. A senior LAPD detective, Beltran, warns his younger partner Carmichael that cops who interfere in Garcia's business end up dead. ![]() Carly and Chris are killed, and Riley is badly wounded.ĭespite her injuries, Riley positively identifies the shooters. As the family walks to their car, Garcia's triggermen gun them down in a drive-by shooting. Riley and Chris take Carly to a carnival for her birthday after an influential but snooty suburban mother named Peg sabotages Carly's party. Chris turns him down, but Garcia, unaware of this, orders his men to make an example of him. Chris is offered the chance by one of his friends to take part in a robbery targeting Diego Garcia, head of a powerful drug-trafficking syndicate. ![]() ![]() They have a ten-year-old daughter, Carly. And, frankly, as long as this genre continues to entertain audiences, Garner is as compelling a lead as any, and more so than quite a few of the men who get so many parts like this.Riley North is a banker in Los Angeles, struggling financially with her husband Chris, the owner of a failing mechanic shop. It’s just violent escapism that happens to have a woman in the lead role. “Peppermint” is not some model of equality. It’s a movie that is really best seen with a big, rowdy crowd that’s there to laugh and cheer at all the bravado. There are a few twists and turns (some eye-rolling, some not) as you wait for her inevitable showdown with Diego Garcia (Juan Pablo Raba). The funny thing about “Peppermint” is that even in spite of its over-the-top script, it starts to lull you into submission when the revenge moments start picking up. It’s a bit of whiplash, her transition from Laura Ashley to Lara Croft, but you get used to the new Riley fairly quickly.Īnd goodness, she is not kidding around with these killings, which are not only bloody and gruesome but also psychotically theatrical. Instead, it just picks up with her killing spree and her life operating out of a skid-row home base. The movie doesn’t show much, if anything, of her training, which is summarized in exposition by an FBI agent (Annie Ilonzeh). But a deeply corrupt system lets them walk, and Riley goes rogue, disappearing for a few years to learn how to be a killer and return on the five-year anniversary of the incident to execute all who wronged her. Riley survives the ordeal, barely, awakes from a coma, gets a grief pixie haircut and immediately identifies the three men with the face tattoos who killed her husband and daughter. Why, you might ask, all the bloodshed? Riley is just a regular middle-class mom juggling a job and parental responsibilities in a sensible midi skirt and conservative sweater until she sees her husband and young daughter get gunned down by agents of a powerful Latin drug boss at a public fair. She uses a maxi pad as a makeshift bandage to sop up the blood from a gushing knife wound and may do more killing than John Wick by the end of the film. It’s a movie in which the central character, Riley North (Jennifer Garner), is called a “female vigilante” by a local news anchor and a “soccer mom” by Los Angeles police. Revenge movie “Peppermint “ starts to make a lot more sense when you realize that it was directed by the man who brought us “Taken” (Pierre Morel) and written by one at least partially responsible for “London Has Fallen” (Chad St. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |