Peppermint - A Jennifer Garner's Violent Vengeance Movie

When this movie premiered on Tuesday, I was unable to see it until only last night. It only played in 1 cinema chain, but since one of them was located very near my home, it was not difficult for me and my wife to see this. I did not choose to see it in a Dolby Atmos theater as it did not have that sound effect. Anyway let's get on with the movie now.

Brief Story Line

Riley North (Jennifer Garner - Alias TV series, Elektra etc) was a woman whose lives was torn apart when a gang of drug dealers led by Diego Garcia (Juan Pablo Raba - Narcos TV series) decided to attack on her family. Unfortunately the corrupt system and people made sure that Garcia's men never got convicted, even though Riley got the support from Detective Carmichael (John Gallagher Jr. - 10 Cloverfield Lane, The Belko Experiment etc) and his partner Beltran (John Ortiz - Fast & Furious, Kong: Skull Island etc). 

After somehow learning on doing violent stuff for 5 years, Riley went back to her hometown determined on revenging all the people responsible for her misery. But it brought the attention to an FBI agent Inman (Annie Ilonzeh - All Eyez on Me, 'Til Death do us Part etc) who would soon be on her tail to capture her.

Hunting Garcia's men while being hunted by LAPD and FBI, would Riley be able to survive and do what she had always intended to do to get her revenge? Find them all in this violent action movie.

End of Brief Story Line

I have read the synopsis of the movie and also saw the trailer to it once and I immediately decided I want to see this. The story was simple enough where a woman's life was destroyed by a group of violent criminals who seemed to be untouchable by law and just want to get her revenge. Yes, the plot felt something like from the movie 2017 Death Wish or all its predecessors, except the heroine (or I should probably say anti-heroine) was a woman. 

In an era where equality had been voiced everywhere, it seemed inevitable that we would see more movies with females as main lead. And I personally felt that Jennifer Garner really suit this role. Her experiences playing action series and movies certainly helped. She was truly convincing in those action scenes and her body language when she was hurt really believable and we honestly felt that it was real pain.

The action sequence here were nicely done. The hand to hand combat was great, the violent nature of the fights (especially killings) were amazing and there were quite a number of head shots. Fans of R Rating violent action movies would be happy to see this. Although for me personally there were scenes that I hoped would have been shown, particularly on the persons really responsible on the violence against Jennifer Garner's character Riley. Not sure whether there was any such scene but cut due to too violent, or there really wasn't. Oh and the sound effects also very nice, which added the element of suspense during the action scenes. There were also plenty of explosions we could see, however, there were also few dramatic moments involving the lost Riley suffered (that also affected us, including my wife).

Surprisingly for such a simple plot movie, it did provide a twist that my wife and I really did not see coming. I thought it was a good twist that made me appreciate the movie more. One thing that was quite odd was there was very little scenes showing the 5 missing years of Riley's life. I thought there would be more of those to give us more hint, but I guess the director wanted to focus on the vengeance more, which was fine by me. This movie was directed by Pierre Morel whose works included one of my favorite action movie Taken also District 13, The Gunman and few others. Another thing that I did not really get was the title as it was only referred briefly and it did not seem to represent her character, except maybe it served as a reminder?

In the end, if you are looking for a good enough, quite suspenseful violent vigilante movie with female lead, then this one would not disappoint. But if you are not into this kind of movie, or you prefer the action to be softer, or you prefer the movie to be really intelligent with perfect plot and scenarios, then I don't think you would like this one. My wife and I personally enjoyed the movie purely for entertainment. The choice is yours.

Mike's movie moments rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars