The Fifth Annual James Proclaims Advent Calendar of Christmas(ish) Films – Door 10

2018 action-thriller Peppermint is rarely thrilling and I’m not entirely sure why it’s called Peppermint. It often feels like a straight-to-DVD affair but I think it had a moderately successful cinematic release. Jennifer Garner stars as the vigilante out to avenge the murder of her family and, to be fair to her, she is definitely not the reason this movie is bad. Indeed, on the strength of her performance, it’s clear that Garner deserves to be in better movies.

But she’s in Peppermint and Peppermint is a pretty bad movie.

Indeed it’s so bad, that even though I can quite happily find something to enjoy in even the most prosaic of action movies, I really did struggle to find too much to enjoy when I watched this. Although credit where credit is due, there was one plot twist which wasn’t entirely predictable. But only one.

Score for Christmasishness

Although I could never, in good conscience, recommend that anyone watch this film, it does have some quite compelling ‘Christmas movie’ credentials. It opens on the 21st December, which is the 5-year anniversary of when the main character witnessed her husband and child gunned down by the bad guys. Which we get to see in flashbacks. So while the movie is all gratuitous violence from star to finish, and includes the murder of a small child, the entire narrative of the movie takes place around Christmas, and there are plenty of decorations etc. to add credence to this fact. Indeed, thanks to the flashbacks, it’s actually two disturbingly violent Christmases for the price of one in many respects.