Peppermint

Peppermint Angel of Death Mural

Originally written almost four months ago but not posted for some reason.

If you look at the basic elements of tonight's movie (Peppermint), it is nearly identical to the one we watched last night (AVA): tough girl knocking down swaths of bad guys. But AVA (trailer here) was just action, if there was a story there I don't remember what it was. Peppermint (trailer here) on the other hand sucked me in and kept me glued to the screen for the entire show. Okay I had to stop a couple of times for personal reasons, but hey, I'm old. Gimme a break.

The first part of the movie was about the wonderful home life a young family has. It goes on for quite a while, much longer than I am used to seeing in these bad-things-happen-to-good-people movies. I was a little anxious because I knew something bad was going to happen. I sort of wanted to get the happy family episode over with so we could get to the mayhem and carnage, but I waited and eventually we got there. And boy, howdy, did we get there. Made me think of Tamara Keel going through a shoot house.

There were some parts of the action section of the movie that were over the top, or just too perfect, or a little surprising that they provided some comic relief. It was great.

The story is basically the same one that's been told about the War On Drugs for the last umpteen years, and that is the drug cartels are force of their own, fueled by profits made from selling drugs to Americans who can't seem to get enough of them.

I can understand why a drug cartel needs to be brutal. It's how those in power maintain their power. We have a government of the people. Our ancestors got together and decided we needed a justice system to punish people who injured our community. That justice system works because it has power to punish miscreants. 

Jennifer Garner is not related to James Garner, even though they have the same last name, the same first initial and they are both play tough guys on TV.