Gunpowder Milkshake – Film Review

Sam (Karen Gillan) was only twelve years old when her mother Scarlet (Lena Headey), an elite assassin, was forced to abandon her. Sam was raised by The Firm, the ruthless crime syndicate her mother worked for. Now, fifteen years later, Sam has followed in her mother’s footsteps and grown into a fierce hit-woman. She uses her “talents” to clean up The Firm’s most dangerous messes. She’s as efficient as she is loyal. But when a high-risk job goes wrong, Sam must choose between serving The Firm and protecting the life of an innocent eight-year-old girl — Emily (Chloe Coleman).

With a target on her back, Sam has only one chance to survive: Reunite with her mother and her lethal associates: The Librarians (Angela Bassett, Michelle Yeoh, and Carla Gugino). These three generations of women must now learn to trust each other, stand up to The Firm and their army of henchmen, and raise hell against those who could take everything from them.

We live in a world where action movies seem to show no sign of slowing down and I’m perfectly okay with that. Action films oftentimes end up being some of my favorite films of all time. I’m not sure if I’m in the minority on this (I probably am) but my favorite action movie of all time is none other than Christopher McQuarrie‘s Mission: Impossible – Fallout. I’ll never forget seeing the film in theatres three times in the span of a week and somehow, instead of growing tired of it, I ended up loving it more and more.

The action sequences were breathtaking, intense, and brutal and the story structure was a thing of beauty. But whatever happened to the sleek, spy-style assassin action flicks? There used to be a lot of them back in the day but sadly, it seems like those days are behind us. One of the only recent ones that comes to mind is Elizabeth Banks‘ Charlie’s Angels, which certainly didn’t break new ground.

However, it seems as though filmmaker Navot Papushado misses the spy/assassin action films as well which is why he brings us his newest feature Gunpowder Milkshake which stars Karen Gillan (Avengers: Infinity War, Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle) as a ruthless assassin that isn’t afraid to get her hands dirty and must do whatever it takes to ensure the safety of an eight-year-old girl.

Gunpowder Milkshake isn’t one of the most entertaining movies of the year sadly, but it certainly isn’t boring. The film has a running time of nearly two hours and yet the script almost always finds ways to inject a sense of urgency in there when things are starting to slow down.

At first, I wasn’t sure how I felt about the action sequences. One scene features Gillan’s character Sam slaughtering a group of guys in a bowling alley and the choreography looked straight-up terrible. There were far too many kicks and simple punches and not a lot of flair and versatility. But later on, the action improves immensely, resulting in an amazing diner scene in the third act that was a delight to see.

And even though this film has a ton of violence and killing, it has an extremely weird but welcomed sense of charm and heart to it, mainly due to the relationship between Gillan’s character Sam and Chloe Coleman’s character Emily.

There is a backstory that the film greatly develops as to how they meet and why Sam feels the need to protect this eight-year-old girl and it is genuinely heartwarming. Another great dynamic duo here is Gillan and Lena Headey, who portrays Sam’s mother Scarlet. Their history is quite fascinating and it’s clear that the two have to work out some problems with one another, resulting in some wonderfully emotional scenes.

But as heartfelt and sweet as Gunpowder Milkshake can be at times, it also feels like it lacks focus severely. There were several times where I felt as though the screenwriters were struggling to come up with ideas as to what should happen next, especially during the second act. Some scenes just feel as though they were included simply to have a violent scene that doesn’t do much for the overall story.

Even with its problems though, Gunpowder Milkshake is quite a bit of fun and is one of the best-looking movies of the entire year as well. Neon lights soak the screen and the cinematography by Michael Seresin seriously makes it pop. If you go into this movie with the right expectations, you’re more than likely going to have a great deal of fun as well.

Overall Grade: B

MPAA Rating: R for strong bloody violence throughout and language

Cast: Karen Gillan, Lena Headey, Carla Gugino, Michelle Yeoh, Angela Bassett, Paul Giamatti, Ralph Ineson, Ivan Kaye, Adam Nagaitis, David Burnell IV, Freya Allan, Joanna Bobin, Samuel Anderson, Michael Smiley

Directed by: Navot Papushado

Written by: Navot Papushado, Ehud Lavski

Distributed by: Netflix

Release Date: July 14, 2021

Running Time: 114 minutes