PINT OF MILK
Karen Gillan and Lena Headey unite for some high-octane mother-daughter family feuding in GUNPOWDER MILKSHAKE
Is Isla Fisher Isla Milker?
INDIANA JONES AND his old man; John Mcclane and John Jr; Peter Quill and a planetsized Kurt Russell... the father-son action film is a fairly well-worn trope in Hollywood. Its mother-daughter variant, less so. Which is precisely what makes Gunpowder Milkshake so intriguing — and borderline radical.
Told largely over one ultra-violent night, the film is the English-language debut of Israeli director Navot Papushado, whose darkly comic thriller Big Bad Wolves was hailed as 2013’s best film by no less than Quentin Tarantino. And happily, that movie’s blend of sharp humour and brutal fisticuffs is still very much in place in his follow-up.
The film’s genesis lies in the director’s fascination with “the gun for hire, the samurai ronin figure”, and a desire to put that character into situations we wouldn’t normally see them in. Clearly, a mother-daughter power play is one of those situations. Papushado explains: “I would watch these kinds of male-driven [action] movies and think, ‘Wouldn’t this be great with a female [protagonist]? How would that change
the narrative?’”
It’s a classic assassin story, then, just told from a fresh perspective. Central to the film is a “mum-and-daughter journey”, as Papushado puts it, but there are actually three generations of assassins, “coming together against a bigger evil” after rookie killer Sam (played by Karen Gillan) decides not to follow orders. Cue violence, presumably.
For Gillan, the project was a no-brainer.
“It was the best script I’d read in ages,” she says. “Such a cool tone — comedic but with incredible action. I trained harder on this than I did for the Marvel films.” Lena Headey, playing her estranged mother Scarlet, is equally enthused: “They’re a family of specialist fighters, but Scarlet’s also just trying to be a mum. She messed up — she was gone a long time — and now she wants to make it up to Sam.” The pair’s ass-whupping squadron is rounded off by Angela Bassett, Michelle Yeoh and Carla Gugino, with Paul Giamatti as Sam’s “guardian/handler/father-figure... it’s complicated,” Papushado says.
For Gillan, the “family dynamic” was a big draw, but it was the action that truly sold her. “I think we rival John Wick on that,” she says. “We’ve got creative weapons and stunts, combinations you’ve never seen before.” But this is far from mindless, shoot-’em-up gore. According to Papushado, each of the film’s fight scenes has its own distinct story, with a beginning, middle and end. “Some were very complicated to execute,” he adds. “We have an elaborate, one-take sequence in a diner that’s poetic and tragic and required almost everyone in the cast.”
And what of the film’s cryptic title? “Well, the movie is a ‘gunpowder milkshake’ of different genres and eras,” its director says. “It’s a film noir, a Spaghetti Western, a samurai movie, with a pinch of horror and Looney Tunes humour thrown in. Honestly,” he says, “I still can’t believe they let me make this batshit-crazy genre blender!”
By the sound of it, Sam and Scarlet will make Indy’s daddy issues look small fry. GUNPOWDER MILKSHAKE IS COMING SOON TO CINEMAS