FAMILY BUSINESS (GUNPOWDER MILKSHAKE)

 

The female assassin has been a Hollywood favourite ever since Anne Parillaud kicked ass in Luc Besson's French thriller 'La Femme Nikita' in 1990 and Bridget Fonda in John Badham's remake 'The Assassin' three years later.

Geena Davis, Angelina Jolie, Charlize Theron, Scarlet Johansson, Saoirse Ronan, Jennifer Lawrence and Jessica Chastain have all enjoyed their moment to kick male butt.

The films mostly tend to be hyperviolent, visually flamboyant affairs about girls from the wrong side of the tracks turned into killers by older mentors who often betray them. 

Some of these elements are at play in Israeli director in Navot Papushado's undoubtedly stylish 'Gunpowder Milkshake'.

However the action thriller is an uneven affair, occasionally veering into the smug. 

Scottish actress Karen Gillan is at last given the chance to step up into a lead role after her impressive turns in the 'Guardians of the Galaxy' and 'Jumanji' franchises..

She plays Sam, an assassin working for an organisation known as The Firm who has recently been involved in a bit of a bloodbath that took the life of Ralph Ineson's crime boss Jim McAlester.

He wants revenge, as he has lost his only son and sends an army of things led by Adam Nagaitis' Virgil to find out who was responsible and kill that person.

Sam meets her mentor, Paul Giamatti's Nathan in the usual rendezvous point - a diner where she is informed The Firm has had money stolen from it by one of its employees, Samuel Anderson's David.

She used to go to the diner to share a milkshake with her mother, who also worked for Nathan, Lena Headey's Scarlet who left her under his care 15 years earlier after getting into a mess over a job.

Scarred by the experience of watching her mum leave after a fierce gun battle in the diner, Sam is a sullen character who under Nathan's tutelage drifted into the family business of killing.

Needing clean guns, she goes to see The Librarians - a sisterhood of assassins who source weapons hidden in books.

Angela Bassett's grouchy Anna May is suspicious of her at first, while Carla Guignol's kindly Madeleine thinks there is something familiar about Sam and Michelle Yeoh's Florence is willing to hear her out.

Realising Sam used to visit their library as a child with Scarlet, they equip her with weapons hidden in copies of 'Jane Eyre,' 'Pride and Prejudice,' and 'A Room of One's Own'.

And off she goes, hunting David down and shooting him in the abdomen in his hotel room, only to realise he has stolen the money to pay a ransom for his young daughter, Chloe Coleman's Emily.

Reluctantly, she takes him for treatment to Michael Smiley's laughing gas addicted medic Dr Ricky who runs a secret clinic for The Firm's assassins and sets off with the money to recover Emily.

Enraged by her decision to go off piste, The Firm sends out three goons led by Ivan Kaye's Yankee to administer enough of a punishment beating to force her back on track.

However their showdown in a bowling alley goes badly, as she sends them limping off to Dr Ricky.

Her rendezvous with the kidnappers sees her recover Emily but the ransom money go all over the place as the gang responsible falls out.

Deciding she has become a liability, Nathan and The Firm, meanwhile, offer her up to McAlester and reveal she killed her son.

But with Virgil and his army of thugs on the warpath and Sam with Emily in tow, can she avoid death?

Papushado's action movie is unquestionably slick and extremely proud of pitching itself as a feminist action movie.

However there's a fine line between proud and being smug and it's a line that the director struggles with, as the movie wobbles from one side to another.

Gillan is more than up to the task of carrying the lead role and certainly seems to be having a lot of fun with Giamatti, Coleman, Bassett, Yeoh, Guignol, Ineson, Smiley, Anderson, Nagatis and Headley, who inevitably resurfaces during proceedings.

Bassett, Yeoh, Guignol and Headley get plenty of screen time to shine and Coleman proves a good foil as the smart kid.

However Giamatti feels underused and he never really getting anything of note to sink his teeth into.

The striking, neon visuals and the high octane action sequences are also just gloss, painting over the weaknesses in Papushado and Ehud Lavski's screenplay.

The film is a little too clunky in the way it tries to fuse the secret assassin world of 'John Wick' with the tongue cheek violence of 'Kick Ass'.

Tonally, Papushado's film is also content to riff on the conventions of the female assassin movie and lampoon them but it doesn't always manage that convincingly.

The characters are occasionally amusing but they have all the depth of a bubblegum packet.

While you are invested in the action to a degree, you never quite shake off the feeling that you should be more concerned for the fate of Sam, Scarlet and The Librarians.

And while it is refreshing to see female action heroes not being sexualised, everything else about the film feels pretty forgettable.

While kudos should go to cinematographer Michael Seresin, production designer David Scheunemann and costume designer Louise Frogley for the fantastic retro look of the film and use of Berlin locations, it is hard to watch 'Gunpowder Milkshake' without feeling a tinge of disappointment.

Don't get me wrong.

'Gunpowder Milkshake' is watchable.

It's just that you can't help feeling that it could have been a whe lot better.

('Gunpowder Milkshake' was released simultaneously in UK and Irish cinemas and on Sky Cinema on September 17, 2021)

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