Peppermint (2018) * *

Directed by:  Pierre Morel

Starring:  Jennifer Garner, John Ortiz, John Gallagher, Jr., Juan Pablo Raba

We know going in Peppermint is a preposterous revenge fantasy in which an ordinary mother opens up a can of whoop ass on the drug dealer and his henchmen who murdered her family.    The mother, Riley North (Garner) transforms herself into a Terminator within the five years between the murders and her return to exact vengeance.    This is the perfect movie for those who post Facebook memes in which they promise retributions just short of disembowelment if you ever mess with their child.   

I allow leeway to movies like this.    I know the only suspense is how creatively Riley will dispose of her intended victims, but some of those methods are head scratchers, such as when she knocks off the three men who actually shot her family and somehow hangs their bodies on a Ferris wheel.    How did she manage to lug the bodies there?    I know she is freakishly strong now, but still.    And how did she do this without anyone noticing?    Did she knock out the security guards?   Were there any?   The mind boggles.

As Peppermint opens, Riley is seen killing a thug and then we flash back to five years earlier, in which Riley's generally happy life is upended when a drug dealer kills her husband and daughter in a drive-by shooting, while wounding Riley.   It turns out her husband and a friend were mulling over ripping off the dealer for some quick cash.    Riley's husband backs out, but the dealer has him whacked anyway.    Riley seeks justice, but due to reasons I won't list here, the suspects are freed and Riley is running away from police who want to send her to a mental institution.

When Riley returns to kick butt, she does so with such efficiency and precision that she must've received training from some country's special forces.    And we are treated to two scenes of Riley applying first aid to her battle wounds, a la John Rambo.    Riley's voice has changed too.    She is no longer perky, but speaks in a Sly Stallone-like low register growl just to show us she means business.    There are two cops on the case, as well as an FBI agent, but these two cops are apparently the only ones in all of Los Angeles since they show up at every explosion, murder, or malfeasance in the city.

Peppermint was a passable entertainment; a slick Death Wish-type of movie in which Garner is a convincing hero, until the clunky ending in which the villain has Riley surrounded by henchmen with guns and instead of just pumping dozens of bullets into her, the dealer decides to engage in a fistfight.    Moments earlier, Riley threatens to wipe out the rest of her crew over the radio, and the dealer says, "She's bluffing,"   Dude, she annihilated nearly all of your boys in the last 24 hours or so, as well as blowing up your drug lab and reducing other establishments to ashes.    And she's bluffing?

Pierre Morel, who directed Taken, helms this movie also, although Taken is an effective action thriller which engages emotions as well.    That formula has been duplicated without much success since.   With Riley's skills she acquired over the last few years, she could dispose of ISIS within a week.