‘Blu-ray or Bust’ - PEPPERMINT

‘Blu-ray or Bust’

PEPPERMINT (2018, R, 101 minutes, HUAYI BROTHERS/STX ENTERTAINMENT)

I sometimes wish that I had a metaphysical stick that I could slap people with.

Just hard enough to let them know when their “brilliant” ideas are stupid.  That’s it—I wish I had a Metaphysical Stupid Stick.  If I did, I would have knocked the idea for PEPPERMINT right out of screenwriter Chad St. John’s noggin, and right over the left field fence.  This is the same guy that came up with LONDON HAS FALLEN, a tired, bland retread of its mildly entertaining predecessor OLYMPUS HAS FALLEN.

So, it should come as no surprise that PEPPERMINT (stupid title for this film as well) is basically a female DEATH WISH.  So far, St. John has done nothing to better the genre, unless you consider the recycling of ideas, stereotypes, and storylines from other films bettering the genre.  Then by all means, praise him for his lack of originality.

But he isn’t the only one to blame here, even if he’s the one that regurgitated this crap with his “brain”.  Director Pierre Morel, he who blessed us with 2007’s TAKEN, should have known better.  And perhaps there was something about the script to lure Jennifer Garner in.  The opportunity to work out and learn some new fight moves, maybe?

PEPPERMINT, in case you missed the trailers, concerns wife and mother of one Riley North, whose family is gunned down in front of her.  When a corrupt system fails to provide the proper justice, she decides to take matters into her own hands.  So, yeah: a female-led DEATH WISH.  And it isn’t that a woman version of DEATH WISH is a bad idea—it isn’t.  But this one just plain sucks.  It would actually be easier to tell you what the film gets right than to pick it apart, but that would also make for a rather short review, and I like to hear meself talk way too much to allow that to happen.

The differences between this and the better aforementioned film (which I highly recommend, by the way—Eli Roth’s remake, led by Bruce Willis, is a gleefully bloody ballet of revenge that plays out more realistically than most of the other entries in this genre) are numerous.  Most glaringly so is the plot: dead family means the survivor gets to kill every single person associated with the people that caused the tragedy in the first place.  These people will either be in the mob or working for a drug cartel, and every Hispanic person depicted in the film will be a gangbanger.  And the hero has to fix their own wounds.  The biggest detraction from the other/BETTER film is that the vigilante is not grounded in any way.  There is a distinct, singular, and well executed method to this mother’s vengeance, and it sets her apart by lifting her up, making her something more than she should be.

Hints of mental illness do nothing to propel the storyline or the character; if anything, glossing over Riley’s mental issues is nearly insulting in that, once again, you get stereotypical traits.  She sees her dead daughter (but not her dead husband) sometimes, and of course you know she will have a life-saving sighting of her at just the right moment.  Besides the occasional flashback, which is represented by a fluttering of images, and easily dismissed with a shake of Riley’s head, there isn’t a whole lot to set this vigilante “hero” apart from the actual criminals she is gunning down by the dozens.

There are special features, but seriously, by the time I got to the end I felt like my brain needed a thorough washing, and my vision was blurry from the poop fumes emitting from the television screen.  So I didn’t watch them.  The last thing I want to see is how this mess got made, how awesome everyone thinks everybody who worked on the “movie” is, and bloopers.  The entire freaking thing is just one long blooper.

Whatever excuse anyone involved had for getting suckered into this one, one can hope that the rest of their careers won’t be judged by this turd alone.  Except for St. John, that is—he shouldn’t be allowed to write anymore.  Or if he does, we should be allowed to watch over him as he does, our Metaphysical Stupid Sticks clenched firmly in our hands.  I’m personally going to call mine “Spearmint”.

Film Grade: F

Special Features: Who cares?

Blu-ray Necessary: Only if you want to start beating yourself with your own stupid sti…okay, that sounds kinda dirty.  Just: NO.

- T.S. Kummelman