FILM REVIEW: PEPPERMINT

Genre: Action, Thriller
Rating: 1.5/5
104 minutes
Director: Pierre Morel

The title, which is grossly misleading, refers to the flavour of the ice-cream Carly (Cailey Flemina) was about to have on her tenth birthday when she and her parents were mowed down by the gun-toting hoodlums of druglord Diego Garcia (Juan Pablo Raba).
While Carly and her father Cris North (Jeff Hephner) perished, her mother Riley (Jennifer Garner) survived — to extend the film by a further hour and a half.
The North family, economically none-too-prosperous, was the target of their affluent neighbours’ jibes. And when word reaches Garcia that Chris had planned to con him, the family becomes the target of the vicious attack during a Christmas carnival.
Though Riley identifies the three murderers in the police lineup, the caucus of crooked attorneys, a corrupt cop and a judge on the take help acquit the grinning trio, leaving Riley disconsolate and thirsting for revenge.
Director Morel, who, with Liam Neeson had made the action thriller ‘Taken’ (2009), seems to have fallen behind more than a few notches in his chosen genre. The film seems to target Latinos and Hispanics. And though it has shades of ‘Death Wish’ in large measure, the lack of a backstory and too many loose ends expose the weak screenplay by Chad St. John (London Has Fallen). Apparently the filmmakers felt that an innocent survivor taking on the baddies would be more thrilling than leaving it to the cops to do their duty.
‘Peppermint’ is more than likely to remind you of a female Rambo: a one-woman army who in her quest for revenge, leaves behind a trail of destruction.