Gunpowder Milkshake (2021, Dir. Navot Papushado):
It’s possible to look at the action-comedy Gunpowder Milkshake in two ways. You could see it, for example, as a movie that has its heart (and its influences) in the right place. At every turn, the film pays loving tribute to a past master: the joyful splatter of a Robert Rodriguez movie; the night-glo sheen of Drive; exhaustive shootouts and baroque touches reminiscent of John Wick; a dash of Lone Wolf and Cub and The Professional in its “killer protects innocent child” premise; shots of gleaming slow-motion carnage that suggest Zack Snyder in a goofier mood; jolts of operatic emotion that steal from the John Woo and Sergio Leone playbook (Ennio Morricone is even sampled on the soundtrack). Conversely, you could look at the film as a Frankenstein concoction, cynically built to fulfill streaming video data analytics and What’s Currently Hot, particularly in its emphasis on female protagonists of varying ages and colors. If your video queue accommodates comic book movies, Gilmore Girls and Quentin Tarantino, then Gunpowder Milkshake is meant for you. Or as the film is helpfully tagged in Netflix: “offbeat,” “slick,” and “violent.” (No surprise that Netflix co-produced the movie.)
At least Gunpowder Milkshake dives into its genre clichés with a certain gusto. Sam (Karen Gillan) is a deadpan contract killer, seemingly impervious to everything, but hoarding a whole bunch of hurt about being abandoned by her mother Scarlet (Lena Headey) back when she was a bright-eyed assassin-to-be. Raised by “Uncle Nathan” (Paul Giamatti), a high-ranking member of a luxe criminal organization called the Firm, Sam is a first-class cleaner, but when a job gets botched, she’s forced to take orphaned Emily (adorable Chloe Coleman from Big Little Lies and My Spy) under her wing, running afoul of the Firm as well as some very nasty mobsters. What to do but reunite with Mom, work out some family trauma, and seek refuge in the very capable arms of her “aunts” (Angela Bassett, Carla Gugino and Michelle Yeoh), who happen to run a library that services killers with every armament known to man and woman? (No points for guessing how this movie ends.) Together, the quintet forms a dream team of female indomitability—a Fox Force Five, if you will, to steal a conceit from a Tarantino film.
So far, so formulaic, but with these types of movies, success depends on the follow-through. Director Navot Papushado devotes most of his energy to the staging: action scenes take place in distinctive locales, including a ’50s-style diner, a bowling alley awash with luminescent blues and reds, a hospital corridor coated head to toe in white, and a library with labyrinthine nooks, crannies and secret rooms. While the violence often goes graphic, it’s mostly cartoonish, especially during the movie’s best bit, a throw-down in that hospital corridor in which Sam, her arms paralyzed, must take out a trio of loony assassins with the help of Emily and some duct tape. Sadly, the rest of the action scenes tend to whirl around in place, the choreography neither visceral enough to linger nor inventive enough to amuse.
Scarlet: You are an incredibly impressive young woman. There’s not a single person on Earth I’d rather kill people with.
Sam: Thanks, Mom.
In between the shootouts and stand-offs, Papushado flounders, as long stretches are devoted to characters threatening each other, sassing at each other or having heart-to-hearts, the dialogue straining in vain for hard-boiled wit (Papushado co-wrote the script with Ehud Lavski). Unlike the classics it apes, Gunpowder Milkshake struggles with tone: wanting to have its shake and drink it too, it seeks to be an arch take on action movies even as it clutches for notes of genuine emotion, with some fashionable gestures towards girl (and woman) power the cherry on top. Every so often, a quirky moment or two resonates, as when a sleazy doctor (Michael Smiley) gets high on his own anesthetic, or a slow-motion tracking shot merges carnage with slapstick as our heroes wipe out an entire diner full of baddies. Sadly, most of the movie’s excitement lies in the set-up, rather than the execution; even as the plot accelerates, the situations and characters remain resolutely flat.
With little help from the script or the filmmaking, it’s up to the actresses to fill out their barely-there characterizations. As Sam’s quippy yet regretful mother, Headey comes off the best—or maybe we’re just relieved to discover that she’s not Cersei Lannister. The other characters tend to fall into specific boxes: Michelle Yeoh as a sage-like martial artist, Angela Bassett as a don’t-take-no-guff badass, Carla Gugino as a more motherly, supportive type (with most of the support coming in the shape of a Gatling gun). As the precocious girl who’s the emotional linchpin of the movie, Coleman is relatively understated—then again, it would be difficult to be anything else, given the little she has to work with. Gillan, all long limbs and blank stares of disbelief, functions well when she’s called upon to be flummoxed or out of her depth; as a laconic action hero, she’s less convincing, and fades into the background whenever Headey, Bassett, Yeoh and Gugino strut onscreen. (If nothing else, Gunpowder Milkshake leaves one hoping for a future movie that makes better use of Gillan’s live-wire comic instincts.)
It all adds up to a sum that’s somewhat less than its Frankenstein parts. If you’ve never seen the movies that Gunpowder Milkshake willfully quotes from, you may thrill to the sight of Coleman wearing headphones and listening to Janis Joplin’s “Piece of My Heart,” oblivious to Gugino as she blows away baddies alongside her, but if you remember a similar bit from John Woo’s Face/Off involving “Somewhere Over the Rainbow,” you may be less impressed. And so on and so forth, as Papushado cribs nearly every move from other, superior films. Gunpowder Milkshake may assemble a cast of formidable females, but seems to expect that their presence alone, along with tossed-in tropes, will carry that day. The film has bona fides to spare in its encyclopedic knowledge of action cinema; what it lacks is a true bona fide original vision or approach that elevates it above pastiche. ■
