My Review of "Peppermint"

Peppermint came out back in 2018 but now that it's airing on Netflix it's starting to get the viewership that it deserved in the first place. It's a pretty brutal action flick that is formulaic but the actors sell the movie quite well. For me it is a very comforting formula where I know what's going to happen but I can't wait for the things to fall into place.

This movie starts off with a woman named Riley. She's the main character of the movie. On the surface she seems like an everyday mild mannered mother. She does her best to keep things in tact in the house while holding a job at a bank.

It's funny because she kind of experiences some bullying from another mother. The two have their daughters in some sort of girl guide program and the other mother seems to be trying to alpha their area of the neighborhood. Riley can't be bothered about it.

Riley's husband is trying to help make ends meet as well. Unfortunately for him he does know some seedy characters and was asked to take part in a robbery.

So when the bullying mother steals all the kids away from Riley's daughter's birthday party the parents have to decide what to do to keep their daughter happy. They decide to take her out to the carnival and have fun as a family. At this point Riley's husband tells his friend that he's not interested in the robbery anymore. He doesn't want to risk the safety of his family.

It's a little too late for everyone as the person they were supposed to rob gets wind of the notion of a robbery and started killing everyone that was involved. Riley's husband's name so happened to be on the list even though he decided not to help out with the robbery.

On that fateful day, Riley's entire family gets gunned down. Riley somehow survives and is understandably distraught. Fortunately for her they had identified the suspects of the murder and she is compliant with the police in apprehending these murderers.

The problem is the justice system is corrupt. The drug kingpin has bought everyone in the justice system down to the police officers. The suspects are eventually freed and this makes Riley go ballistic.

From then on it becomes another paint by numbers revenge tale. I loved so much about this movie. They made Riley the ultimate badass and to me it was believable. She took 5 years to train herself to become this deadly warrior that the bad guys never expected. It's the perfect person to come back as a vicious assassin. She was so unassuming in the beginning and they broke her.

This is of course a movie with a regular playtime so they couldn't go deep into the fact that she was helping out the slum area that she was staying at. They didn't go into her training montage either. Usually that's kind of added into the movie because who doesn't love a training montage. Then again they are pretty cheesy and overdone.

The action here is gloriously brutal and extremely unrealistic. I love it though. At one point you just watch it as if it's a cartoon and you can have the most fun with the movie at that point. This is the action movie that I can enjoy.

Again this is a typical revenge movie but there's so many comforting factors to this movie. At least that's the case for people that love action movies. The characters are extremely binary so you can tell who's good and who's bad. There's probably one small exception with this but overall it's very digestible.

This movie even ends off with a semi cliffhanger that will allow for a sequel to happen. If they ever come out with a sequel to this movie I'd definitely watch it. I haven't had as much fun with an action movie since the original Equalizer.

Overall, if you're looking for some cartoonish action fun this is the movie to watch. I really liked it. The start can be a little slow but it sets the movie up pretty well. I have to give this movie a 7.5 out of 10. I would watch this movie again and I hope that they come out with a sequel to it.