'Peppermint' | Movie Review | Spoil-Free + Spoilers

Spoil-Free

In this section, I will be talking about the movie Peppermint in the most vague but engaging way as I possibly can. Further down, I will be going more in-depth and talk about more of the key elements in the movie, for those of us who have seen it.

Peppermint is a movie many might consider as like a female Punisher kind of movie. The backstory goes that Riley North is a Mom (Jennifer Garner) who loses her husband (Jeff Hephner) and her daughter (Cailey Fleming) and when the justice system fails to bring the people who did it down, she decides to take matters into her own hands. Again, pretty basic story line, cliche and all, but hey, it is directed by the same person who directed Taken (Pierre Morel). So obviously, we're going to get some good stuff. After the killers get to walk, she goes off the radar and trains in order to come back and punish all the people who did Riley wrong and took her loved ones away from her.

First off, I know the name Peppermint sounds like a pretty strange name for an action/drama film like this, but I'll talk a little bit more about it when I go into the spoiler portion. I personally love the name and what it means. Look past the name for now, it'll make sense more if you've seen the trailer and the beginning portion of the movie, I promise!

From there, the film has a fairly good pacing to it, having the action being as constant as it is where it needs to be, and where there's more down time as she collects her thoughts, or we move to other characters and situations. I wouldn't consider it non-stop action, it has its breaks in-between, but the action doesn't slow down until something is solved and done with.

I also personally like most of the characters. You don't get to see a whole lot of the daughter, but she makes me laugh, she was your average kid. The husband was pretty mediocre, his last moments are really the only memorable ones, and unfortunately, we don't see much of him afterwards. The movie makes it pretty clear that while Riley cared about her husband, her daughter, Carly, is the real driving force behind the mother's actions. I understand why, to an extent, but while this woman seems to love her husband, mentions him, whatever, she doesn't seem to be killing these people for him.

The other characters are good, I enjoy the various bad guys we get to see, I enjoy seeing the officers, for the most part, the foreshadowing they do with the cops is pretty repetitive, but hey.

The acting is for the most part pretty good, the action scenes look amazing, the dialogue is great, the story may seem familiar but nonetheless interesting. It was good movie, maybe not the most re-watchable movie (just in the sense of already knowing the twists and turns), but one I'd get on DVD for the collection nonetheless.

Spoiler Review

Now, one of the first things I mentioned was the name Peppermint. I know when I talked to both my boyfriend and one of our roommates, they didn't care for the name. I personally enjoyed the fact that they named the movie the way they did. It's not the most telling name of what it's about, and I'm sure if you only heard the name and nothing else, you'd think you're about to get involved in some Christmas marathon you didn't sign up for. However, the name is rather clever when you watch the movie.

Back in the trailer, you hear Riley talking about her daughter Carly, she's sweet, snow in her eyes, and peppermint in her heart. At the beginning of the movie, you find out that Carly's birthday is happening during Christmas season, and her parents are taking her to a Christmas Festival, which is where the daughter also gets peppermint flavored ice-cream. This is because there is a prissy high-class living mother named Peg, and she is salty about Riley and Carly trying to take her spot to sell Girl Scout cookies with her daughter. She is petty as all get out and decides she is going to invite her daughter's classmates (which are obviously also Carly's classmates) to a Christmas party their hosting the day of Carly's birthday and her birthday party. Yeah, Peg's pettiness is that large, and we all know a Peg, unfortunately. Don't worry, she gets her karma later.

So Peppermint is to pay homage to Carly, with the different connections such as Christmas season, the ice-cream she gets before she dies, and the little description the Mom says in the trailer. And this brings up another point that I kinda touched on earlier...

...I know this movie is suppose to be about her getting back at the Cartel for killing her family, her husband and daughter, but honestly the husband is extremely forgettable. In all of this, you only kinda hear Riley mention her husband, and see him in the photographs she gets from the photo-booth they did in the festival, but Carly actually appears as part of her hallucinations. She gets flashbacks of Carly. She sees Carly in the backseat of the car she steals. She gets woken up before the Cartel can come in and try to kill her by Carly's voice and hallucination. Heck, the movie is even aware of it by the fact that it is named Peppermint. At the end of the day, this movie is about her getting revenge and avenging Carly. Not Chris. Honestly, I wouldn't be too surprised if it's low-key because of the fact that this was Chris's fault.

Chris technically brought the death of himself and Carly because he decided to be part of a heist to steal from the Cartel. He didn't go through with it, but man, the Cartel doesn't care. And they are always willing to do what they gotta do to send a message. I'm not saying Riley doesn't care about avenging Chris as well, but this was really about Carly more than anything.

I loved the inclusion of seeing her with the homeless, living with them, and they saw her as this amazing Guardian Angel. I wish they were utilized more then just one of the girls being a hostage for the Cartel to bring Riley out of her hiding spot, and that they actually maybe tried to help her more than they did. Don't get me wrong, I know for a fact that they really didn't have much of a chance against the Cartel, but it would have been nice for them to try, you know? As like a "You've helped us, let us help you." and I also kinda wish we got more insight of what she was doing for them to make graffiti art of her as this angel with wings of guns.

And of all people we got see her kill or the aftermath of it, man, oh man, do I wish we had gotten to see her kill the lawyer the Cartel paid off. He was the one that really got to Riley and caused a huge reaction from her. He not only tries to pay her to let this all go, don't bother taking it to court, he is the person who allows these murderers to walk and make her look like some crazy woman. He put the final nail in the coffin, broke the last straw that finally made her become who she is.

I enjoyed a lot of the little details they include, from Riley freezing when she sees Ana (Diego Garcia's daughter), us getting to see Riley stick it to Peg and scare the pee out of her (literally), and many more details they include. I also enjoyed it being Stan who is the corrupt cop, and I'm actually pretty mad I didn't put it together earlier that it had to be him who was corrupt. All the pieces were right in front of me!

I wish we had gotten more of the husband so I could actually believe Riley was trying to avenge him and Carly, not just Carly. He was an incredibly weak and forgettable character. I would have been perfectly fine, or liked it better, if Riley had actually been a single mother, maybe a divorce or she had been widowed early, but Chris's only real role in this was to get him and Carly killed. At that point, his role could have been played by anyone, hell Peg herself could have been the puppeteer in the background who decided to put a hit on them for all I care, but Chris wasn't important at all. He was a plot device at best.

All and all, I feel this was a pretty good movie, not a favorite, but good for what it was. I give it a 6/10.