Respond to these rapid questions in our Peppermint quiz and we will tell you which Peppermint character you are. Play it now.
Inside the mediocre revenge thriller “Peppermint,” there’s a morbidly funny dark comedy that’s not too far down the rabbit hole. Perhaps the movie that director Pierre Morel (“Taken,” “District B13”) and screenwriter Chad St. John had in mind was not the one that was ultimately produced. The film “Peppermint” tells the story of a newly widowed mother who seeks vengeance against the cartoonishly evil Latino drug dealers who murdered her husband and her daughter. Riley North (Garner) goes on a rampage after experiencing a generically traumatic event, despite the fact that she is suffering from obvious psychological trauma that she refuses to treat (she has been prescribed Lithium and anti-psychotic medication, but she refuses to take them). Riley’s instability is so prominent in the film—represented on a regular basis by sped-up, out-of-focus, and over-exposed subjective camera work—that no one in a position of authority believes her when she claims to remember the faces of the three men who murdered her family.
But audiences are supposed to root for Riley because the killers of her husband and daughter—a gang of joint-smoking, booze-drinking, gun-toting monsters—are still on the loose, and the system is rigged, among other complaints that were made previously (though not necessarily better) in the 1980s by lackluster sequels and ripoffs of “Death Wish.” Even if Riley’s post-traumatic stress disorder-like breakdowns suggest that she shouldn’t be venting her rage by murdering every complicit and therefore ostensibly deserving person she can find, someone has to pay. But, once again, “Peppermint” is not a critique of Riley’s privileged upbringing. She’s just a white woman whose sole motivation is to rail against a broken justice system while slaughtering a group of stereotypically ruthless Latino gangsters who happen to work in a piata store, to put it mildly (as is announced three times during a news report within the film). It’s difficult to see how this isn’t a black comedy about our troubled times.
Despite the fact that the film’s producers are French and Chinese, the film’s heroine (unintentionally) exemplifies an odious strain of contemporary American thought that insists that you are the one who is really being bullied if someone tells you that you are bullying them. You aren’t even required to provide evidence in support of your counter-claim. Take, for example, the numerous ways in which Riley’s creators justify their decision to use racist caricatures as straw men antagonists in the series.
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It is claimed that Riley’s actions are justified by her self-perception as a working-class martyr. Riley and her daughter Carly (Cailey Fleming) are humiliated by Peg (Pell James), a snobbish rival mother who, in a flashback, tells Riley and her daughter Carly that they aren’t “real Girl Scout material.” However, we’re supposed to believe that Riley’s rage is representative of the city’s disgruntled and disenfranchised residents, as evidenced by a flurry of tweets (which were displayed during the police department’s official investigation into Riley’s crimes) and a wall mural that’s been erected in the “Skid Row” section of town (identified as such by a Google Maps-like search, also during a police investigation). Due to her involvement with untouchable crook Diego Garcia (Juan Pablo Raba), a high-powered crime boss who’s protected by an LAPD mole, a high-powered lawyer (Michael Mosley), a corrupt judge (Jeff Harlan), and dozens of gun-toting heavies, Riley is considered an underdog. Therefore, Riley must do what a corrupt system will not: the exact same things that Frank Castle, Paul Kersey, Harry Callahan, John Rambo, the Duke, the Boondock Saints, and everyone else in the pantheon of Red-Blooded American Avengers have already done, as well as things that no one else has done before him.
Peppermint Quiz
However, there is one drawback to supporting Riley: there is more evidence to suggest that she is a highly effective (but also somewhat goofy?) monster than there is evidence to suggest that she is an antiheroic voice of the people. Riley threatens Peg with a gun until James’ character’s character urinates all over himself or herself. She also stabs the character of Harlan, after which she detonates a bomb. Riley also carries a gun that is at least half the size of Garner’s, if not less. After breaking into Garcia’s house, she stalks her prey like Steven Seagal at a buffet table, hoisting her massive rifle in front of her like a…well, you get the picture.
Also, you will find out which character are you in this Peppermint quiz.
Everything about Riley’s past and current circumstances should lend her a more sympathetic ear to her current situation. Unfortunately, Morel appears to be more desperate than he is eager to please on a regular basis. In a flashback, we see that Riley’s boss despises her and has forced her to work late on her daughter’s birthday in order to spite her. And this is just a few days before Christmas! One can’t help but sympathize with Riley, who has a husband (Jeff Hephner) who is asked to take part in a crime but who is so innocent that he refuses just before he is about to be killed in order to spend time with his family, making his death all the more tragic. Just take a look at the bad guys she’s up against once more! Garcia’s men are defined by their tacky surroundings, whether it’s the Las Vegas-chic (marble tiles and glass decanters) of his home or the Santa Muerte effigy in the shape of a Grim Reaper that ostentatiously looms over his various warehouses.
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Morel also tries to avoid accusations of racism by portraying the three officers who investigate Riley’s case—John Ortiz, John Gallagher Jr., and Annie Ilonzeh—as a diverse and gender-balanced group of people who are all of different races. And don’t even get me started on the inevitable unmasking of the double agent who’s been working for Garcia in the background. During one scene, Ortiz says something unbelievable like “the difference between [the cops and Garcia’s men]” is that the cops “should care,” whereas the criminals “do not.”
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All of Morel’s pitiable self-victimization is important to the film’s plot and message, but not necessarily in the way that Morel believes it to be important. It doesn’t take much to convince me that his apologetic rant about the film’s inherent shakiness doesn’t justify the nauseating spectacle of Garner shooting and stabbing her way through a legion of stick figure villains, but it does suggest that the film’s heroine may be unwittingly perpetuating the same imbalanced system of power that she’s railing against, no matter how many dead family members, and POC allies are on her side. “Peppermint” can be a little amusing, but it is never done on purpose.
For more personality quizzes check this: The Commuter Quiz.
