Peppermint ★

On the surface, this amoral vigilante thriller looks like any other throwback to the carnage-filled action schlock of the ’80s and ’90s, but arriving in 2018, a film that demonizes Mexicans as drug dealers and murderers comes off as less Death Wish than Deplorable Wish Fulfillment. Irresponsible to say the least, the latest from Pierre Morel (director of the first Taken) can also be described as The Punisher by way of the #MeToo movement. Jennifer Garner (erstwhile Sydney Bristow of TV’s Alias) looks like she’d rather still be married to Ben Affleck than appearing in this cinematic stain. Sure, her character, Riley North, has a reason to look constipated, given that she’s been shot during a drive-by shooting that left her husband (Jeff Hephner of TV’s Chicago Fire and Chicago Med) and daughter (Cailey Fleming, young Rey in Star Wars: The Force Awakens) dead on the street on the pre-teen’s birthday. But then, Garner looked like this even before her family was gunned down in front of her. Worse, after she positively identifies the cholos behind the triggers, the three killers are released because she’s been deemed an unreliable witness who’s gone off the deep end. She then does what any person wronged by the system would do: She actually goes off the deep end. Dropping off the grid, she spends the next five years honing her body into an unstoppable killing machine, plotting violent bloody revenge against the cartel full of evil brown people who destroyed her life, making her a hero on social media. If you want to build a wall, may I suggest one that keeps films like this from reaching theaters? (At Assembly Row, Boston Common, Fenway, Seaport, South Bay and in the suburbs.)