I was pretty excited to give Peppermint a watch, even though it has less than stellar reviews online. It is brought to us by director, Pierre Morel who directed the first Taken movie along with District 13 and From Paris With Love, three badass action movies I really do like. I have to say that while it is not the greatest revenge thriller I have ever seen, I thought that it was ok.
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The Movie Review
Another reason why I wanted to check out Peppermint was that it had Jennifer Garner in the lead role (check her out also in The Last Thing He Told Me)! We were getting to a point where it was like Jennifer Garner was being typecast as the “mom” type role so it is always great when she gets to show that she can still kick some ass as well.
I say that she was typecast as a “mom” but that is what she starts Peppermint off as. Riley is mom to Carley and wife to Chris and while they are happy, they are pretty much living paycheck to paycheck and need money. Chris has an auto shop and one of his buddies tries to get him to rob this big-time criminal called Diego.
Chris wants nothing to do with this, but word gets back to Diego about this and he targets Chris anyway. In a shooting, Chris and Carley are killed, but Riley manages to survive. Now, that is bad enough, but things actually get worse for Riley as the justice system fails her as most of the people responsible for putting Diego and his goons behind bars are on his payroll.
This leads her to go away for several years and then come back to seek her revenge. While she was away she learned all kinds of stuff, mainly shooting, stabbing, punching, and kicking! Riley intends to use her set of new assassin skills to not just take down Diego, but his whole operation and those who failed her in finding justice for her husband and daughter.
I can see why some people feel that Peppermint is as basic as it gets when it comes to a revenge thriller-type movie. There are no epic or surprising twists here, you know what the story is right from the start and it never even attempts to mix it up. However, does that automatically make this a bad movie?
To be fair, Peppermint is a fun thrill ride that has a lot of action and I feel like you do care for Riley and want to see her get revenge. One thing I thought was cool was that we get to see the public opinion on her and how some people see her as a protector. Jennifer Garner is great as Riley and she does some pretty heavy-duty damage in this movie.
Overall, I would have to say that I liked Peppermint. I have seen far better movies of this type, but I have also seen a heck of a lot worse. If you have this on a streaming service (I saw it on Netflix) it is well worth a watch if you are in the mood for something fun and something that does not require you to think a great deal while you are watching it.
