Peppermint

[GeneChing]

Jennifer Garner Joins Lakeshore & Pierre Morel-Helmed Revenge Thriller ‘Peppermint’; STX films To Distribute
by Mike Fleming Jr
August 8, 2017 8:30am


Rex/Shutterstock

EXCLUSIVE: Jennifer Garner is in talks to star in Peppermint, the Chad St. John-scripted action film for Lakeshore that will be directed by Pierre Morel. At the same time, the film is in the process of moving: STXfilms is in talks to distribute the film worldwide. It looked like Lionsgate had secured worldwide rights during Cannes, but that arrangement has fallen apart.


Rex/Shutterstock

The high-action revenge thriller premise has been likened to John Wick, with a female protagonist. When her husband and daughter are gunned down in a drive-by, the heroine wakes up from a coma and spends years learning to become a lethal killing machine. On the 10th anniversary of her family’s death, she targets everyone she holds responsible, the gang that committed the act, the lawyers that got them off, and the corrupt cops that enabled the murderous incidents. Lakeshore’s Tom Rosenberg and Gary Lucchesi are producing.


ABC

Garner will hone action chops not seen since her breakthrough role as the ass kicking operative Sydney Bristow in the JJ Abrams-created series Alias, which led to her playing Elektra in the Marvel film Daredevil and a solo spinoff movie. She has more recently become known for her work in such films as Dallas Buyers Club and Miracles From Heaven. CAA and Management 360 rep Garner. Morel and St. John are UTA and Morel is managed by Sentient Entertainment.

I loved Alias. It remains my favorite work of Garner's, far superior to Elektra.

[GeneChing]

[GeneChing]

We were invited to a screener of this last Wednesday but I was already committed to something else and there was no way I could crank out a review by today.

[GeneChing]

Alias was a great TV show, at least it was for the first few seasons until overspent its welcome. Jennifer was astonishingly good as a grad student turned super-spy and it had a young Bradley Cooper, who Stacy spotted early and said was going to go places (I dismissed him - shows you what I knew). Jennifer has dabbled in some action since, including that horrid take on Elektra, but mostly she went to cutesy films and ads. Peppermint is her return to action.

It's bad. A typical revenge tale, way in the wake of Death Wish (1974). A soccer-mom loses her husband and daughter to a Mexican drug gang, trains secretly for 5 years, then walks the road of vengeance. What I loved about Death Wish was that it felt real. Bronson was far from superhuman and his reaction to Jeff Goldblum randomly violating and killing his family in a jughead cap was so visceral. In Peppermint, Jennifer morphs into Sydney Bristow in just half a decade, very unrealistically so. The other characters are so hackneyed, the police mole, the sadistic jefe, the cholo gangsters, the good cop, the innocent bystanders - so predictable. Jennifer is good tho. She still sells action surprisingly well, both in her gunplay and her hand-to-hand. And she delivers some classic vigilante quips that work. Given the proper vehicle - like an Alias reboot - she could do well as an action star. She's much better at it than those cutesy roles. The problem is that despite Alias, filmmakers see her as cute and just cannot conceive of a cute spy anymore.

The film, like Death Wish, sets up a sequel. The film made money, so that's on the table still, although most critics agreed with me.