GUNPOWDER MILKSHAKE

A guaranteed hit…

DIRECTOR Navot Papushado STARRING Karen Gillan, Lena Headey, Michelle Yeoh, Carla Gugino

“There were times when I was pinching myself, ‘Oh, wait a minute, I’m doing this crazy movie that we wrote from scratch.’” So says Navot Papushado, director of Gunpowder Milkshake, an explosive concoction about three generations of hitwomen.

Karen Gillan’s Sam follows in the footsteps of her estranged mother, Scarlet (Lena Headey), when she’s indoctrinated into a life of violence by ‘The Firm’. Trained as a deadly assassin, a job gone wrong leaves Sam looking after an eight-year-old girl, Emily (Chloe Coleman). Her new predicament means she must join forces with her mum, who has her own kick-ass crew, The Librarians (Angela Bassett, Michelle Yeoh and Carla Gugino).

Papushado (Big Bad Wolves) promises a unique genre mish-mash for his action original: “This combination of a little bit of Alfred Hitchcock, a little bit of Sergio Leone, a little bit of Akira Kurosawa – it just came to be one thing, this genre blender around a gun for hire, an assassin, and a samurai.” He also calls it “film noir meets spaghetti western”.

He’s full of praise for his leading ladies, who went hands-on with the stunts and gunplay. “I owe them a great debt because they were really inspired and encouraged me to push the script further, and push their characters further.” Anticipating a hard R-rating, he adds, “It’s just a violent movie. It’s about three generations of assassins, and there’s all this violence. I don’t think we left anything on the editing floor.”

And as for that title? “It hits you in the face,” grins the director. “It hits you really hard. It’s a milkshake of tones and inspirations from all these directors like Michael Mann and Jean-Pierre Melville and Buster Keaton and Charlie Chaplin and Looney Tunes, and all the way to Tarantino and John Woo and the Coen brothers… I think it’s going to be a blast.” Just don’t expect anything vanilla.

ETA I 2021 TBC