Peppermint

Peppermint (2018) opens with a family attacked at a funfair in Los Angeles. Riley North loses her husband and daughter. She identifies the attackers, and the court dismisses the case under pressure from the judge and the lawyers. She disappears and comes back five years later. The title comes from the ice cream her daughter was holding on the night of the attack. Pierre Morel directed. He had made Taken, and this is that template rebuilt around a woman; the structure is almost identical. Jennifer Garner leads. She had been away from action for a long time, and after the series Alias and Elektra this was her return to it. Critics reacted harshly. The objections divided in two: that the logic of revenge is never questioned anywhere, and that almost every Latino character is written as a member of the drug cartel. The second point was what was argued about most. It cost 25 million dollars and grossed around 53 million worldwide. It runs 102 minutes. Good for: direct revenge action, Jennifer Garner, and short genre films. Less good for: the corrupt system is sketched superficially and the law is pure caricature. The violence is graphic and unjustified. How she was trained across five years is never shown; the film covers it in one line.