Peppermint - Blu-ray Review

[Michael Scott]

Peppermint

Movie:
Video:
Audio:
Extras:
Final Score: ​

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Movie
The vigilante doling out justice has long been a staple part of legend and lore throughout just about all of mankind. Robin Hood stealing from the rich to give to the poor, Batman taking on the criminal underworld of Gotham City, John Wick destroying gangsters and mobsters due to his wife and puppy dying. Each of these stories always glorifies the frustrations and actions of those who are tired of when justice is not dispensed. The idea of someone operating outside of the confines of the convoluted and flawed judicial system appeals to the innate sense of justice and fairness in all of us (even though the reality of vigilantes are usually completely different), and Peppermint taps fully into that gleeful joy at seeing someone dispense said punitive justice.

Riley North (Jennifer Garner) is a mother of one, wife to a loving husband, and living a simple life as a bank teller until a gang fueled drive by robs her of her husband daughter, leaving her to deal with the aftermath. The cops catch the perps pretty quickly, but do to her being prescribed medication for a mental breakdown and an inept justice system, the grieving widow is forced to watch them walk Scott free. Dropping off the map completely after a breakdown in the court room, Riley surfaces 5 years later and lands on the police radar when she starts single handedly taking out thugs and gangsters in the lower town districts. It seems that she has been training non stop the last 5 years and is back with one goal in mind. Vengeance. Vengeance for her husband and daughter, and the most bloody kind at that. The people who created her are about to find out why it doesn’t pay to poke the mama bear. Especially a mama bear with LOTS of guns.

Directed by the same director as Taken, Peppermint plays out like a mixture of that movie along with a strong sense of John Wick, and countless other vigilante movies. Riley North is a tour de force, sweeping through the Hispanic drug cartels like an avenging angel, complete with a serious arsenal of guns that turns them into mince meat. The movie takes a bit to get going, but when it does the end result is a satisfying revenge action flick with a rather intense lead character. Jennifer Garner herself is no stranger to the action genre, having cut her teeth playing an action star in Alias, and she does well in the roll. Pierre Morel effectively uses Garner as a heroine without giving her TOO many super human powers. She fights men twice her size, but she usually survives and wins through quick movements and fast gun play rather than trying to make people believe her feminine form can take on men twice her size in hand to hand combat (a nice realistic tweak to her character). There’s some quick cuts to the film, but it has a fairly straight forward action repertoire and feels nice on the eyes.

Now the bad stuff. Peppermint has a slow start and takes quite a while to get into the action (even though there are some rather cool gun fights later on in the movie), and the second half feels a bit stilted and cliched. It’s as if we’ve seen this type of movie a thousand times, and while Jennifer Garner is good as Riley, she never truly emotionally resonates with the viewer. We get long spiels about how the poor homeless populace see her as an avenging angel, but outside of cops talking about her we really don’t get to see much into the psyche of the woman. There IS one really awesome scene where Riley comes face to face with an old acquaintance, which results in a rather nasty cat and mouse game (verbally speaking).

The movie works in many ways, but it really has a difficult time differentiating itself from a myriad of other action movies, rendering pieces of it very generic feeling. Garner is good in the role, and the rest of the characters work in their parts, but there is just this lingering sensation that it could have been MORE than it was. That being said, it’s a rather fun action movie, and deserves WAAAAAAAAAAY more praise than it could by critics during the theatrical run (ironically it was lambasted by critics en masse, but the audience scores were massively in favor of the movie, which is wildly on the opposite end of the spectrum from the critics responses).




Rating:

Rated R for strong violence and language throughout




Video:

Universal gives the flick a very solid transfer in 2.39:1 AVC, and does so with typical digital quality. The film has a rather bleak look to it, with a majority of the shots done late at night with minimal lighting. Textures and details are usually good, with some shots looking softer and smearing a tad in total darkness. Clothing, concrete walkways, faces, they all have good amounts of intimate details shown, and the colors themselves show up nicely (if only slightly under saturated and dull due to the lighting). Skin tomes are natural and neutral, while contrast levels are a little on the dim side. It’s a good transfer, with most of the “issues” being inherent to digital shots in low light conditions. There’s a little bit of crush and digital noise in some of those darker shots, but overall this is a very nice looking disc.





Audio:

The 7.1 DTS-HD MA track is about on par with the video quality, being good to excellent, but never really ascribing to be fantastic. The track is not overly aggressive, but showcases some really good action sequences that get the blood pumping and the base thumping. The sound stage is good with plenty of musical heft, and the directionality of the gun battles is superb. Surrounds can be a bit light from time to time, but they manage to come back from time to time with the more aggressive scenes in the film. Dialog is crisp and cleanly located up in the front, and evenly balanced with the chaotic nature of the film. Sometimes I noticed dialog getting a bit softer than I liked, but the range difference between the action/score isn’t that much different than the dialog track. It’s a good 7.1 mix, but just doesn’t try to be anything more than a solid effort.





Extras:

• Justice: A behind-the-scenes featurette with Jennifer Garner & Director Pierre Morel
• Feature Commentary by director Pierre Morel

Final Score: ​

Peppermint is not another John Wick or Taken in terms of being fresh and new for the action genre, but it is a fun action movie with some great gun battles. The movie has a hard time finding it’s own identity at times, but that is overcome by the before mentioned action and Jennifer Garner’s intensity. Univeral has given the Blu-ray a very solid transfer and audio mix, along with the typical low grade extras, so if the trailer tickles your fancy it very well could be worth checking out as a fun watch.



Technical Specifications:

Starring: Jennifer Garner, John Gallagher Jr., John Ortiz, Juan Pablo Raba, Annie Ilonzeh, Jeff Hephner, Cailey Fleming
Directed by: Pierre Morel
Written by: Chad St. John
Aspect Ratio: 2.39:1 AVC
Audio: English: DTS-HD MA 7.1
Subtitles: English SDH, Spanish
Studio: Universal
Rated: R
Runtime: 102 Minutes
Blu-ray Release Date: December 11th, 2018

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• Michael Scott
• May 11, 2017

Recommendation: Fun Watch

 

[Asere]

Man I hate it watching films when someone gets murdered especially kids but once I get passed that I really enjoy the revenge behind it from the loved ones. I will rent this one and thanks for the review.

 

[tripplej]

Thanks for the review. I will also check this out once available on amazon prime/netflix.

 

[JimShaw]

Excellent review and thanks. You've saved me some money.

I was going to purchase but because of this review, I will be renting

 

[phillihp23]

Watched it the other day. Great film, solid action.