Facing Mom’s wrath
Peppermint proves that revenge isn’t always sweet
Let us consider Jennifer Garner. She of Alias, of 13 Going on 30, of Juno. She, also, of Elektra, of Miracles from Heaven, of Mother’s Day.
She of two extremes: endearing and fierce.
Somehow, the same actress who can jump out of a building, speak Japanese for the first time while pulling off a complicated fight sequence, can also sorrowfully speak to a baby bump in the middle of a comedy, heartbroken she can’t feel it move.
In the last decade, her career has leaned heavily on mom roles. That isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but Garner’s parts have been almost exclusively thankless and minute, to a nearembarrassing extent that puts her choices on par with those of Halle Berry.
In comes Peppermint, and a role that taps into Garner’s leading tendencies as an actress.
She stars as Riley North, a woman whose husband and daughter are killed in a drive-by shooting by members of a drug cartel.
The murderers walk free because the cartel seems to have the entire justice system in its pocket.
So what is a wronged mom to do?
Seek vengeance, obviously, and so Riley becomes, essentially, a vigilante superhero, down to the leather boots and nomad life.
Her only objective is to find and kill the men who took away her loved ones, while protecting the locals who can’t protect themselves along the way.
Every event, character trait and line of dialogue is clichéd as to suggest parody, from Riley’s good-guy husband, whose entire performance is based on glares and nods, to the gang itself.
The cartel consists of a team of unwashed, greasy clowns led by a wealthy man who wears only turtlenecks, his pinky fingers crammed with gaudy rings, his moustache distractingly thick as he boxes out his frustrations on the punching bag in his office and spits out “kill the bitch!” demands as scantily dressed women inexplicably walk by.
It’s a remarkably racist interpretation, amplified by Garner’s godly white saviour.
It’s impossible to take any part of the film seriously once this glaring villainy is introduced.
Meanwhile, efforts abound to remind us just how good Riley is.
She’ll risk losing her job to make it home in time for her daughter’s birthday, she’ll save a kid from his mean alcoholic father on the rough local bus, the local homeless who worship her even paint a winged mural of her in the street that would make Marvel proud.
It’s all, frankly, hilarious.
At one point, as the FBI comes closer to pinning down Riley, the team takes stock of her social media following; she has Twitter fans, it turns out, watching her every move.
The desperation to make Riley someone to root for is so dense — and so unnecessary with an actress like Garner — that it only adds to the film’s unintentional attempt at parody.
The movie is so bad, it’s almost impressive.
A film with parents mourning and/or avenging a child’s death is never this void of depth.
And Jennifer Garner, back in top form as the type of vigilante that kick-started her career, is sorely misused in a role — once again.