Peppermint

If you enjoy movies like ‘Death Wish’ or ‘The Brave One,’ you will probably enjoy Jennifer Garner’s foray into the revenge movie genre.  She plays Riley North, a woman who survives a brutal attack by drug cartel gunmen while her husband and daughter die before her eyes.  Riley is infuriated when a corrupt system – the judge, district attorney AND defense attorney are almost cartoonishly bad – allows the murderers to go free.  She is remanded for psyciatric evaluation, but escapes and spends some years off the gird learning to fight and use weapons so that she can come back and get revenge on the drug cartel and judicial officials on the take who subverted justice through their greed.  John Ortiz  and John Gallagher, Jr. are the LA police officers on the case and Method Man makes a brief apperance as well.  I don’t feel this movie is as good as some of the others in this genre though, so you might want to consider the new ‘Death Wish’ with Bruce Willis instead.  Of course, as in all of these kinds of movies, there are some plot holes, the inevitable dirty insider in the police department and seemingly impossible events that occur.  I was a little disturbed to see several  people who brought their kids to see this one.  It is extremely violent and I heard two of them talking to each other as they left.  One child said, “I hated this movie” while the other replied, “I didn’t like it, it was boring.”  I wish people would read reviews (like Adnerb, for example) before taking kids to see something that has the potential to  affect their kids.  Anyway, if you want to see a female kicking butt, don’t mind a lot of violence, and can ignore some plot inconsistancies, this movie will pass the time on a rainy Sunday afternoon.  Just don’t bring the children!