Peppermint (2018)

I'm not a fan of Jennifer Garner at all as I find her acting bland and unconvincing. I'm not the biggest fan of action flicks either but every time I went to the movies since December they kept showing the trailer for Peppermint. I knew it was going to be bad, but I checked it out anyway to see how bad. Very bad, as it turned out. 

The story follows Riley North (Jennifer Garner), a mother and wife working as a banker who is struggling to make ends meet. Her husband, Chris (Jeff Hephner), who owns a failing mechanic shop, gets into some shady business which results on drug lord Diego Garcia (Juan Pablo Raba) ordering his men to kill him. Riley's daughter, Carly (Cailey Fleming), also gets killed and five years after the judicial system failed her, Riley sets out for revenge.

Saying that Peppermint lacks originality would be offensive for movies lacking originality as this is essentially The Punisher with a female lead —both Castle and North's families were killed in a crossfire of a mob shootout and both survived, and both took place at a carnival; they both live in a van loaded with arms; they both become vigilantes to punish criminals; they both feel like they want to die when they finally get their revenge— only it's way, way more predictable —a dirty cop subplot, seriously?— and ridiculous —when the judge dismissed the case, I literally dropped my jaw because I could not believe how stupid that was. It was beyond clear that Garcia had paid every single person in that courtroom.

The main character is also nothing new as Riley is the typical hurt turning into a vigilante kind of person. She is indestructible, no matter how many times she's shot or stabbed, she's like Nikolai, she never dies. Not to mention the fact that Riley goes all Frank Castle with no military background at all. One day she a regular woman, then she goes off the grid and comes back five years later as a killing machine. I mean, don't we even deserve to know how and where she trained? The blandness and ridiculousness of the leading character pales in comparison with the supporting characters though as they all are paper-thin and stereotyped, from the villain to the dirty detective —and by "dirty" I don't mean Dirty Harry dirty.

STXfilms

As expected, the acting is awful, especially from Jennifer Garner who gives yet another of her atrocious performances as she is anything but convincing in the role of a female vigilante who takes down a whole drug gang while outsmarting the police.

The only good thing about Peppermint? The action. While most sequences are generic at best and pretty bland, there are some interesting and almost thrilling sequences here and there.