Movie Review: Peppermint

“How you really think this is gonna go?”

“I’m gonna shoot you in your fucking face and then I’ll pretty much figure it out from there.”

I feel like there’s a moment in every person’s life where they do something exceptional. Some do incredible things and some comparatively smaller but everyone, at one point in their life, if they think really hard about it, has done something amazing.

When you take the time to recognize that thing, sometimes it’s hard to move past it because you know that might have been your peak. There’s a possibility you’ll never do anything that great again. There’s a chance that feeling of euphoria, of wholeness, doesn’t return.

I struggle with this personally. I spend a lot of time reminiscing, thinking about things done and left undone, times in my life I could and should have been better, pieces where I’m proud of what I accomplished. Sometimes, this chain of prior success is hard to break but it’s crucial you free yourself so you can move forward.

I really feel director Pierre Morel is in this predicament. Taken was a phenomenon and as I said years ago, a classic, pure and simple but Luc Besson was the engine of the enterprise. Morel’s most notable contribution was staying out of the way.

When you’re a part of something extraordinary, whether a work of art or a championship or a business, regardless of how big or small a role you played, it is natural to want to recreate that achievement. Over the years, I’ve come to believe reimagining success requires you to accept you cannot do it the way you did before. You have to work harder, think more critically and take a different approach. Those who do not adapt to life, who continue to believe the way things were done last time will work again, often struggle to revisit that level of splendor and fulfillment. Part of creating, of succeeding, is recognizing it as its own journey, unique to itself. You cannot duplicate success, only make a new one.

It’s taken me a long time to come to this conclusion. I only wish such wisdom didn’t take years to acquire.

When you don’t make these changes and utilize this knowledge, you end up with Morel’s filmography.

There have been a lot of Taken knockoffs since 2008 and a lot of vigilante justice comparatives. It’s an oversaturated story market. Everyone loves a rebel, someone who takes control in a powerless situation but the psychology, trauma and emotional weight of caped crusaders are what drive their stories. Often, the character simply isn’t interesting enough to warrant an escapade and Peppermint is one of them.

A far more interesting but less theatric premise would have been seeing Riley North (Jennifer Garner) try to move on with her life after her family’s murder, to see her rebuild herself after such a trauma rather than leap the Atlantic by suggesting a suburban housewife became a trained assassin over the course of five years and then eliminated cartel operations in one of the biggest cities in the world. Drama around such pain carries so much more weight and can lead to a much larger payoff.

To be clear, there might be five people in the world capable of doing something like this, of making the unimaginable jump from selling girl scout cookies to martial arts master and maestro of military-grade assault weapons. We’re talking about such a small percentage that it’s just very hard to believe in the material, even if you want to and when the character is as restrained as North is, moreso.

When the pool has as many people in it as the vigilante thriller, it’s hard to stick out as it is. Underwhelming writing and messaging don’t help.

I’m not going to criticize Garner here. If anything, she’s likely the main reason to click on this but a character who’s gone through immeasurable heartache and grief would never be this boring. Characters who have endured tragedy, who have suffered and rebuilt themselves, are polarizing. As a journalist, I interviewed a few of them during and after my college days, one a veteran with PTSD. He was one of the most complicated, admirable and intriguing people I ever covered, one easy to empathize with. To make Garner’s persona so dull feels insulting to the premise of everyday heroes like him.

Peppermint is a strong flavor. Peppermint isn’t.

When your writing is this blase, it’s not even worth criticizing the acting. You’re putting your cast in a losing position. With no bite to our protagonist and plagiarism to our villain, Peppermint is closer to watered down vanilla. It was hard to find a quote for the intro quip, the lines are so basic.

Morel’s background is in cinematography and Peppermint isn’t an artsy film either. Neither was The Gunman. In his pursuit of the golden fleece, he’s forgotten his roots.

I’m not gonna sit here and say Morel is a hack or a one-hit wonder. I haven’t watched enough of his filmography nor read interviews he’s done on his creative process. There’s no need for mudslinging but whatever promise Morel demonstrated with Taken hasn’t reappeared and I’m well aware, both as a person and a creative, how frustrating that can be. Something has to change with Morel and how he’s approaching his stories. If he doesn’t change, neither will the results.

Once again, if you’re new to my blog, I’ve always ranked movies on a scale of 0-100 (I don’t know why, I just always have). Here’s the grading scale. 

90-100  It’s a great movie and definitely one worth buying. (Batman Begins, The Matrix, L.A. Confidential, Her, Taken)

80-89  It was a pretty good movie and definitely one worth seeing, but it doesn’t quite scratch my top ten percentile. (The Conjuring 2, Spider-Man: Far From Home, Dumb and Dumber, Pokemon Detective Pikachu, The Matrix Reloaded)

70-79   It’s okay but I’ve seen better. It has its moments, but it has its flaws, too. (Solo: A Star Wars Story, The Matrix Revolutions, Triple Frontier, I am Legend, Ip Man 2)

60-69   It’s got plenty wrong with it but I still got enjoyment out of this one. (Mr. Right, Zathura: A Space Adventure, Battleship, The Rundown, 2 Fast 2 Furious)

50-59   This movie isn’t intolerable but it’s not blowing my mind either. I’m trying really hard to get some sort of enjoyment out of this. (G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra, XXX, The Silence, The Fast and the Furious, Brooklyn’s Finest)

40-49   This movie is just mediocre. It’s not doing anything other than the bare minimal, so morbidly boring that sometimes I’m actually angry I watched this. (Transporter 3, Doom, The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift, Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales, Power Rangers)

30-39   Definitely worse than mediocre, the 30′s ironically define the 1930′s, full of depression, lack of accomplishments, poverty and just so dumb. (Bulletproof Monk, High-Rise, Most Likely to Die, Independence Day: Resurgence, The Crow: City of Angels)

20-29   What did I just watch? Cliches, stupidity, nothingness, did I mention stupidity? Just…wow. (XXX: State of the Union, The Snowman, Avalanche Sharks, Catwoman, The Gunman)

0-19      Watching this movie resulted in one or more of the following: seizure, loss of brain cells, falling asleep/unconsciousness, feel you wasted your time/day, accomplished nothing for you, left the movie knowing less about it then you did going into it, constantly asking yourself why you came to see this movie, or near-death experience. In short, staring at a wall was just as entertaining as watching this movie. This movie deserved a sticker or a label that said, “WARNING: EXTREME AMOUNT OF SUCKAGE.” (The Extendables, The Coed and the Zombie Stoner, The Forbidden Dimensions, Cyborg, Outcast)

My score for Peppermint: 51.

With nothing stirring visually and no driving presence in front of the lens, Peppermint is a poor man’s copycat, an unoriginal work easily forgotten.

Movie Review: Taken

Taken is a stud of a film, plain and simple. A kidnapping carousel with a dominant presence is what the doctor ordered back in 2008. French creationist Luc Besson is one of the best international names in the industry. Most of his filmography has not been visited by American audiences but those that have debuted in the U.S. have been quite a hit.

Besson gets the majority of the credit for Taken, not director Pierre Morel, a cinematographer whose directing gigs have been less than thrilling. Go watch The Gunman and you’ll see what I’m talking about.

No, what stands out about Taken is not the cinematography, though there are nice framing shots.

It’s not the action, though it does give the movie an adrenaline shot on more than one occasion.

The script, coupled with Neeson’s character delivery, is what you remember.

Taken lives on in the minds of moviegoers for this.

That is by far the best sequence in Taken. It does not go downhill from there but it never reaches that point again. That phone call with his daughter is Bryan Mills at his most vulnerable and yet also at his most composed and most threatening. Halfway through, it feels like Neeson is ready to throw his phone to the side and grab the camera with outstretched hands, looking into the very soul of a man he has met many times before. His familiarity with the type of creature he’s conversing with is prevalent. That monster on the other end of the call doesn’t know it but he just released Bryan Mills’ monster and his is far smarter, chronically diligent and lethal without hesitation.

In most scenes where a father was talking to the man who just kidnapped his 17-year-old daughter halfway across the world in one of the largest metropolises on planet Earth, you would greatly sympathize with the father. By the end of that phone call, you don’t feel sympathetic for Bryan Mills. You feel sympathy for the guy on the other end who just opened the gates to Hell.

We don’t know who Mills is at this point in the movie. We know he served his country and has military experience, that his occupation cost him his marriage and time with the love of his world, his daughter and we know that doubt and forlorn sadness has crept up to him following his retirement. The opening sequences of the thriller do a solid job casting Mills as a figure for which we can carry empathy.

The Olympus of the film makes us feel for anyone dumb enough to get in his way. A mere two minutes of screen time flips our perception of our star. He has trials like we do. He has suffered. Throw him in a den of wolves though and suddenly it’s a crib of Mills.

He sees the world through a different lens. His ex-wife mistakes his knowledge for paranoia. Her comeuppance comes shortly after.

And none of all this happens unless Luc Besson writes down a few paragraphs. Besson is primarily known as a visionary (he’s made a career out of displaying artwork on film rolls) but lets his pen strokes do the painting here. That scene is gripping and a thesis for the film. Remove it and Taken loses a substantial amount of emotional investment and character acceleration.

With that scene, Mills becomes an element of darkness, an agent of terror, wholly justified and unquestioned by his audience. He is karma itself.

I really can’t say enough about that scene. It is one of the best monologues action films have had to offer in the last decade.

From there, it’s Mills doing what he does best.

Besson drags out the tension in his script, glazing the piece with emotional rigor. There aren’t a lot of plateaus in this film. It’s a two-hour heartbeat of fjords and highlands. You will find no clean pastures here.

I couldn’t find the whole segment but the introduction of this set is terse and tense. You can see the realization creep into his face.

The crafting of this character and this tone is masterfully done. Besson is careful not to stoke the fires of xenophobia, though I’m sure some will take that message away from this anyway. Instead, he showcases the corruption the world is all too familiar with. It’s almost expected at this point. Mills isn’t just fighting the people who took his daughter. He’s fighting the system that prefers to keep everything quiet and unexciting. The schemers, as one great character once said.

At the end of the day, you know Mills is going to save his daughter, so there is some predictability there. The film actually lacks a strong villain. Villainy as a whole fills in as a stand-in but doesn’t serve as the most accurate counterweight to the super agent Neeson delivers, though the one man against the system style does benefit the film’s vision. Fight choreography is solid throughout and Morel deserves credit for not cutting it to death as some novice directors are known to do. Too many cuts can really take wind out of the sails. This final archive is well done.

Once again, if you’re new to my blog, I’ve always ranked movies on a scale of 0-100 (I don’t know why, I just always have). Here’s the grading scale.  

90-100  It’s a great movie and definitely one worth buying. (Captain America: Civil War, Deadpool, Avengers: Age of Ultron, The Avengers, The Babadook)

80-89   It was a pretty good movie and definitely one worth seeing, but it doesn’t quite scratch my top ten percentile. (The Conjuring, Sinister, Olympus Has Fallen, The Cable Guy, The Cabin in the Woods)

70-79   It’s okay but I’ve seen better. It has its moments, but it has its flaws, too. (Ip Man 2, Ip Man, Kong: Skull Island, The Invitation, Hush)

60-69   It’s got plenty wrong with it but I still got enjoyment out of this one. (The Road, Doctor Strange, Johnny Mnemonic, Jason Bourne, Suicide Squad, Batman Forever)

50-59   This movie isn’t intolerable but it’s not blowing my mind either. I’m trying really hard to get some sort of enjoyment out of this. (Wind River, Tommy Boy, Death Note, True Memoirs of an International Assassin, The Great Wall)

40-49   This movie is just mediocre. It’s not doing anything other than the bare minimal, so morbidly boring that sometimes I’m actually angry I watched this. (Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales, Power Rangers, Underworld: Evolution, Batman & Robin, Bloodsport)

30-39   Definitely worse than mediocre, the 30′s ironically define the 1930′s, full of depression, lack of accomplishments, poverty and just so dumb. (High-Rise, Most Likely to Die, Independence Day: Resurgence, The Crow: City of Angels, Centurion)

20-29   What did I just watch? Cliches, stupidity, nothingness, did I mention stupidity? Just…wow. (The Snowman, Avalanche Sharks, Catwoman, The Gunman, The Visit)

0-19      Watching this movie resulted in one or more of the following: seizure, loss of brain cells, falling asleep/unconsciousness, feel you wasted your time/day, accomplished nothing for you, left the movie knowing less about it then you did going into it, constantly asking yourself why you came to see this movie, or near-death experience. In short, staring at a wall was just as entertaining as watching this movie. This movie deserved a sticker or a label that said, “WARNING: EXTREME AMOUNT OF SUCKAGE.” (The Coed and the Zombie Stoner, The Forbidden Dimensions, Cyborg, Outcast, Sabotage)

My score for Taken: 90.

Hopefully sooner rather than later I will have my next installment of Winners And Losers (WAL) up. I look forward to resurrecting that series. Until then, this gets a link to WAL Round 2 as a solid win. Taken is a rendezvous through human trafficking, espionage and some superb character writing from Besson. A must-watch if you haven’t seen this in the last decade.

Movie Review: The Gunman

When the trailer for this came out early in 2015, I knew to avoid it but when I’m scrolling through Netflix and see an opportunity to see a film from the current year, I usually take it, even if I know it’s not going to be an enjoyable one.

The Gunman is that opportunity and while, like me, you may be inclined to hit the play button on this one, I would strongly encourage you not to.

Plopping down the street like a haphazard drunkard, The Gunman bumps into nearly every obstacle possible on its way down the alley of degradation. It’s not hurting anyone so much as it’s being a nuisance to society and you just want to throw it in a cell for a few days until it gets itself back together. However, like the story of Humpty Dumpty, The Gunman never comes back together again. After shattering itself on the pavement in the opening stanzas, there’s no tug or general want to see where this story takes us, especially when “8 years later” appears on the screen before the film’s reached 15 minutes.

A general note: Any time jump of more than a year is a bad sign and any competent director should avoid such leaps. Unless your story is a jump from childhood to adulthood a la J.J Abram’s Star Trek or due to a prison sentence a la Double Jeopardy, there’s rarely a need to do this. For the purpose of flow, I would advise all stories to avoid this. Most times I see the phrase “years later” impress upon the screen, I can feel my whole body sink a little and my brain begin to cringe inside my skull. More often than not, prepare yourself for some shoddy storytelling because it’s all downhill from here. Surprise, surprise: The Gunman‘s no different.

Director Pierre Morel, whose name you might recognize as the director of the hostage hit, Taken, doesn’t know what he’s doing here and his expertise as a cinematographer is never utilized. You would think a film directed by someone who found his place in the industry through visuals would demonstrate said talent when he was at the top of the totem pole but evidently not. The Gunman is an insipid piece and one of the more calmer action films you’ll see from 2015. Our star character, Jim Terrier (Penn), might be the most boring assassin a camera has ever followed. With no moral qualms to highlight and no reason to fear him or view him with awe, Terrier holds no cards in his hand of any value. Penn’s tenacity is an afterthought to a script glancing up at the clock, anxiously waiting for it to all be over. The plot wasn’t thought out well, the villain’s motive is illogical and the points the plot decides to emphasize don’t resonate.  There’s no grit or ear-splitting tension in the script’s action sets and no cold, collected dialogue that grips. With a clunky plot and a supporting cast more of a nuisance than a help, poking holes in The Gunman isn’t all that difficult.

The Gunman is the Christmas present you don’t want to open. You do your very best to slowly push it into a corner and hide it under a blanket or anything within reach. You know what it is, you don’t want it, you want it to go away. Problem is, the present is obnoxiously large and so out of place there’s no way to cover it and so you’re called out on it, are forced to open it and do so begrudgingly with a look of disgust and frustration on your face as you unmask this abomination.

Out and open to see at this white elephant party, everyone looks at it with the same sense of distaste as you, only confirming the inherently-flawed product left before you.

It’s when you look at films with good, even great writing that you look at The Gunman and realize how truly awful it is. Before 2015 was out, I saw Star Wars: The Force Awakens, The Hateful Eight and The Revenant. They’re all galaxies ahead of this. I watched Insurgent recently and again, it’s so far ahead of this. The Gunman is just bad. It has plot holes, the action it does offer is segmented and Penn is left on an island trying to make the case his character is relevant.

Once again, if you’re new to my blog, I’ve always ranked movies on a scale of 0-100 (I don’t know why, I just always have). Here’s the grading scale.  

90-100  It’s a great movie and definitely one worth buying. (Avengers: Age of Ultron, The Avengers, The Babadook, Interstellar, Chappie)

80-89   It was a pretty good movie and definitely one worth seeing, but it doesn’t quite scratch my top ten percentile. (The Cable Guy, The Cabin in the Woods, Tears of the Sun, Edge of Tomorrow, The Amazing Spider-Man 2)

70-79   It’s okay but I’ve seen better. It has its moments, but it has its flaws, too. (Creed, Scouts Guide to the Zombie Apocalypse, Crimson Peak, The Martian, Black Mass)

60-69   It’s got plenty wrong with it but I still got enjoyment out of this one. (The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 2, Beasts of No Nation, Terminator: Genisys, Black Sheep, Twisted)

50-59   This movie isn’t intolerable but it’s not blowing my mind either. I’m trying really hard to get some sort of enjoyment out of this. (Everest, Hercules, The Sentinel, Mad Max: Fury Road, Blitz)

40-49   This movie is just mediocre. It’s not doing anything other than the bare minimal, so morbidly boring that sometimes I’m actually angry I watched this. (The Ridiculous 6, The Lost Boys, Zombeavers, Crank, Erased)

30-39   Definitely worse than mediocre, the 30′s ironically define the 1930′s, full of depression, lack of accomplishments, poverty and just so dumb. (Centurion, Planet of the Apes, Stonados, Redemption, Pride and Prejudice)

20-29   What did I just watch? Cliches, stupidity, nothingness, did I mention stupidity? Just…wow. (The Visit, The Fantastic Four, The Boy Next Door, The Colony, In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale)

0-19      Watching this movie resulted in one or more of the following: seizure, loss of brain cells, falling asleep/unconsciousness, feel you wasted your time/day, accomplished nothing for you, left the movie knowing less about it then you did going into it, constantly asking yourself why you came to see this movie, or near-death experience. In short, staring at a wall was just as entertaining as watching this movie. This movie deserved a sticker or a label that said, “WARNING: EXTREME AMOUNT OF SUCKAGE.” (The Coed and the Zombie Stoner, The Forbidden Dimensions, Cyborg, Outcast, Sabotage)

My score for The Gunman: 29.

The Gunman is one of the worst of 2015 and with failings in every department, it’ll probably make my worst of the year.