Peppermint [Blu-ray]

A friend of mine forced me to watch this movie. I say "forced" because while I knew Jennifer Garner had made her name on ALIAS, a show about a kick-butt super-spy, I had some trouble swallowing the idea that she could effectively play a vengeance-crazed heroine who goes head-up with the Mexican drug-dealers who murdered her family. I am happy to say my fears were groundless. This is quite a good film. It doesn't aim all that high, but it hits precisely what it is aiming at.Riley North (Garner) is a totally ordinary suburban American housewife. Her husband's business is struggling badly, she's being bullied by a more wealthy neighbor, and she's worried about money and her young daughter's social life, which is threatened by her petty feud. Little does she know she has much more to worry about. Husband Chris (Jeff Hephner) has agreed to rip off a vicious drug dealer, Diego Garcia (Juan Pablo Raba) to get his family back in the black. Chris gets cold feet, but not before Garcia gets wind of the plot, and decides to punish Chris by wiping out his entire family. In the ensuing slaughter, however, only Chris and daughter Carly, nicknamed "Peppermint," are killed. Riley is only wounded, and after recovering testifies against the shooters. However, dirty drug money works the scales of justice, and the killers walk. Riley, on the other hand, ends up shunted off to a mental institution by the crooked judge. She escapes, however, and disappears off the face of the earth.Years pass, and the two detectives who worked the murders, Carmichael (John Gallagher Jr.) and Beltran (John Ortiz) are still haunted by them. So too, however, is someone else, because the shooters are starting to turn up all over the city, slaughtered like sheep. Is it just a drug war, or is someone else working an angle? Diego Garcia wants to know, too, because while his star is rising, the Mexican Mob who supplies him is coke is perturbed by his inability to keep the peace. And when the judge who let the killers walk dies a horrible and humiliating death, it seems the impossible has happened: the once meek-and-mild suburban housewife has come home to exact vengeance. What follows is a curious triple hunt. Riley hunts Garcia, who is hunting Riley, and the cops are hunting them both, while simultaneously trying to understand how Miss Meek became The Punisher-ette during her mysterious time away from the city.If all of this sounds a little tropey or predictable, what elevates PEPPERMINT from the usual boring action revenge story is as follows:First, Jennifer Garner. She gives a very good performance, or rather set of performances, as a harassed housewife turned murderous vigilante. She is insane with grief and hatred, but it's a controlled insanity, which only a good actress could portray.Second, the look and atmosphere of the film are very well done, with more than a touch of old-school Film Noir in the darkened, puddled, neon-reflected city streets.Third, the pace is very, very fast without becoming a meaningless blur. There is no fat on the script or in the story, but it never feels rushed, either, and while the editing is brisk, it never hits that awful jump-cut MTV style that is so popular with hack directors trying to appeal to attention-deprived audiences.Fourth, there are some good twists in the plot, which are at once predictable and not predictable -- you expect the twist, but you are probably wrong in your deduction of who will perform it.Fifth, Riley is not presented as invincible because she is angry and has a righteous grudge, a mistake many lesser films make. She gets busted up. She gets hurt. She feels pain and she bleeds. The fact she drags onward with her quest thus becomes admirable and tragic simultaneously.There are a few problems. An attempt to show how famous Riley has become by constantly referencing her presence on social media is silly, annoying and seems to pander to Millennials who live on their phones. Who cares if Riley is "trending?" We don't need to be told that Twitter supports her to feel sympathetic toward her: she has our sympathy from momet one. Also, Riley goes a bit overboard humiliating and terrorizing her petty, vindictive former neighbor, who she somewhat unfairly blames for being partially responsible for her daughter's death. The character deserves some of it, but not as much as she gets. And as always in this sort of film, a heftier than normal dose of suspension of disbelief is required. Garcia is well portrayed, but he's a generic villain and isn't nearly intelligent or competent enough to have come as far as he has in the drug world if one semi-sane vigilante can tear his organization to bits.Having said this, I consider PEPPERMINT to be a brutal but pleasant surprise. Revenge films often bore me because they always assume that the desire for revenge confers special powers on those who seek it. This Pierre Morel-directed film manages to embrace that conceit while more or less dodging it completely by making her so tragic. Like Michael Caine's character in HARRY BROWN, the vigilante is not portrayed as an offender but rather as a victim, which makes all the difference. As the saying goes, before you seek revenge, first dig two graves.

disclosure... I'm a relatively shallow individual and I'm easily amused. Garner is pretty, bullets fly, stuff blows up, revenge good. I discovered Peppermint while checking out RT. I think only 17% percent of the critics gave it a thumbs up, but the vast majority of the audience who reviewed the movie liked it. Well, there you go, sign me up. If the mainstream corporate media critics hate it but the audience loves it, the movie has to be a part of my collection.

I seen this on Netflix and loved it, so I had to get it before Netflix took it off. She is so great in this show. And she shows great concern for homeless people and lives among them while she took care of business.

Female “John Wick”

If you're looking for a complex plot and brilliant dialogue, this isn't the movie for you.If, however, you're in the mood for a no-holds-barred shoot-'em-up flick, then "Peppermint" is a great way to spend a Friday night at home. It's a movie that is roughly 90 percent action - hardcore action. There are lots of gunfights, a few explosions, and some brutal hand-to-hand combat. Jennifer Garner - a very fit Jennifer Garner with actual muscles - plays a mom who sees her husband and daughter murdered by a drug cartel. The killers get off because of crooked cops, crooked prosecutors, and a bought-and-paid-for judge. Years later, she goes on a rampage to bring her own brand of rough justice to the killers and everyone else she thinks is responsible for the killers going free.Garner is one of the world's most beautiful women but you wouldn't know that watching this movie. She is covered in dirt, or blood, or dirt and blood for much of the film. Her hair is a mess most of the time, she has a scar on one arm - though we don't know how she got it. (That's a plus, in my opinion, because it lets the viewer use his/her imagination to fill in the backstory. So few films do that these days; more's the pity.)Garner is, in my opinion, terrific in the role. She's both fierce and vulnerable at the same time. Her fight scenes are believable, for example, and when she's called upon to be the prototypical suburban soccer mom, she pulls that off as well.The cinematography is well done; much of the movie is shot in dark tones and that helps set the mood for what is a very violent film. The direction is seamless and members of the supporting cast - asked to play stereotypes for the most part - manage to make their characters believable despite that.In summary: "Peppermint" is an ultra-violent film with a kick-ass heroine and, though it won't appeal to everyone, it's very, very well done.

LOVED this movie! I’ve watched a couple times over the years.

Peppermint, as others have pointed out, is much like The Punisher. A woman named Riley North (played by Jennifer Garner) sees her husband and daughter gunned down in a drive-by shooting by members of a drug gang. When the killers are let off because of corrupt cops, lawyers, and judge, she takes matters into her own hands to get revenge on everyone. The movie sees Garner return to the action roots she displayed on Alias, and despite being older, it does not looks like she has lost a step at all.For those who get the Blu-ray disc, the movie looks and sounds great in HD. It is a shame that it was not released in 4k UHD because there are a lot of great visuals, despite it not being a special-effects laden sci-fi movie. The bonus material is kind of pathetic. Just a two-and-a-half-minute behind-the-scenes featurette and a commentary track by the director.The movie is not exactly novel or unique. That so, even though it is a pretty standard revenge story and kind of predictable in parts, it is well-done and timed very well (just over an hour-and-a-half) so it does not lag or feel like it drags on too long. If you are a fan of Garner and looking for a good action movie, it is definitely worth checking out.

Cette fois, nous avons un film de vengeance au féminin, qui se démarque des habituels totureporn que le cinéma américain tourne avec complaisance, notamment la variante sordide dite "rape an revenge" dans la quelle une jeune et jolie jeune femme est violée et sodomisée avant d'être battue et d'être laissée pour morte par des dégénérés, puis dans la foulée suit une revanche sadique ou les dégénérés expient leurs crimes dans moult torture sadique. Ce film est bien meilleur avec une Jennifer Gardner excellente qui campe une mère de famille, Riley North, qui voit sa fille et son mari tué par des gangsters mexicains acquittés par un système judiciaire américain gangréné par la corruption. Cette mère de famille ordinaire, elle même victime de la tentative de meurtre va se métamorphoser en une sorte d'ange de la vengeance : certaines scènes de close combat laissent à désirer car elle oppose un poids plume à des malabars musclés ou même la pratique de la boxe féminine est insuffisante pour combler la différence de gabarit : assez curieusement Rilley North fait un usage répétitif d'un couteau CRKT nitruré noir au titane qui était en fait un couteau pour plongeur avec une face tanto. un vrai choix de close combat verrait sans doute l'utilisation d'un karambit, une arme blanche mortifère très dangereuse en combat rapprochée et qui est très à la mode aux Etats-Unis, mais pas seulement : avec une formation en Kali c'est un outil létal bien meilleur. Il y a de superbes scènes de fusillade contre les mexicains avec notamment l'utilisation d'un fusil à pompe à deux chargeurs parallèle Neosted qui pousse la capacité à 12 coups. Après on a une kyrielle d'armes de poing diverses et variés et un M4/M16 SOPMOD utilisé avec un silencieux : l'absence totale de son est très hollywoodien. Toujours est-il que l'ensemble est un film d'action nerveux et violent qui pose la question de faire la justice soit même : j'aime bien la conclusion qui résume mon point de vue personnel. C'est un très bon film d'action qui constitue un super-divertissement sans prise de tête et c'est très bien comme cela.Le film a été testé sur une installations 4K dotée d'un écran Samsung de 40 pouces, d'une platine de salon UBX-800 Sony, d'un ampli haut de gamme Denon et d'enceinte françaises Focal SIB Dolby Atmos 2.0 complétées par une enceinte centrale Bose : vous ne serez pas déçu par la qualité des images qui sont au top avec un Blu ray techniquement irréprochable, de même pour la bande son française plus que correcte. Bonne séance à toutes et à tous.

Great film and good quality

Despite poor critic reviews, I really enjoyed this movie. I couldn't help but think, this reminds me of a female version of Batman Begins. Perhaps it would have been better received as a Batgirl origin story.

J'adore

WHAT A DELIGHTFUL SURPRISE --ACTION FROM THE OPENING SCENES AND A THE STORY JUST FLOWS AFTER THAT JENNIFER GARNER IS SUPERB AND THE ACTION SCENES WITH HER ARE AUTHENTIC --I CHEERED WHEN THE EVIL UGLY BAD GUYS GOT "THIERS " BRO--I ECHO ANOTHER MEMBER- OF YOURS -PLEASE PLEASE --WHEN IS THE SEQUEL COMING OUT --DO NOT DISAPPOINT US --OH FOR THE "DOUBTING THOMASES" OUT THERE --TRUST ME IT IS WELL WORTH THE "COIN "AMIGO