Gunpowder Milkshake

This year's Netflix produced GUNPOWDER MILKSHAKE is shamelessly derivative of a thousand other movies, but this was a perfect non-think choice for a Friday night.   Cranky reviewers mainly cite the JOHN WICK series, but there are also generous cribs from the KINGSMEN movies, The MATRIX movies, Quentin Tarantino movies, and on and on and on.   Unsurprisingly, before its debut on the streaming service in July it was screened at the New Beverly in Los Angeles, an uber cool retro theater that has been owned by Tarantino for some time.   I'm sure the audience ate it up, though even the undemanding among them may have their adrenaline fix diluted by an overpowering deja vu.

Sam (Karen Gillan) is an assassin who works for "The Firm", an organization of hired killers.  She follows in the footsteps of her mother Scarlet (Lena Headey), who one fateful night left her behind in a diner when some other hired killers showed up after a job gone wrong.  Twelve year old Sam will go on to be raised and trained in the art of killing by Nathan (Paul Giamati), the head of the firm's human resources department.   The now twenty-something has her own botched hit job that will complicate her new assignment - track down a guy named David (Samuel Anderson) who absconded with money from The Firm.  A guy who needed the money for the ransom of his kidnapped daughter, Emily (Chloe Coleman).

After some plot developments, Sam and Emily will be on the run from The Firm and a rival agency, along the way reuniting with the long estranged Scarlet and meeting some of mom's ex-cohorts: Madeleine (Carla Gugino), Anna May (Angela Bassett), and Florence (Michelle Yeoh), a sisterhood of assassins who operate out of a library.  

One watches a movie like GUNPOWDER MILKSHAKE for the action - the fights, the gunplay, the colorful cinematography.  Maybe some like hearing pop songs on the soundtrack accompanying said mayhem.  It's all there, but while entertaining to watch it really did feel stale to me.  Co-writer/director Navot Papushado does contrive some creative set pieces, my favorite being the hospital battle as Sam takes on three inept henchman after her arms are numbed by an evil doctor.  I also liked the scene with Emily working as Sam's arms during a car chase in a garage.   But the tired use of CGI and what passes for slow motion these days  overwhelms the movie, especially during the protracted climax.  But hey, you're probably watching this at home on Netflix.  You get what you pay for.  

And while the cast is well assembled, the women deserved a better script.  Maybe we can get a prequel with some deep backstory.  I'm not holding my breath.