Gunpowder Milkshake is a better Jackie Chan homage than a John Wick riff
Karen Gillan puts her comedic chops to good use in this Netflix actioner
Film Reviews Gunpowder Milkshake
Since bursting onto the scene as Doctor Who’s fiery companion, Karen Gillan has carved out a particular niche as an actor. Her signature is playing characters who look like they should be supremely cool but who have the heart of an awkward dork—a talent she’s put to use in both the Guardians Of The Galaxy and Jumanji franchises, as well as her cancelled-too-soon sitcom Selfie. It’s why Gillan initially seems like an odd fit to lead Gunpowder Milkshake, a John Wick-flavored shoot-’em-up with an icy opening act that aims for cool by way of both 1950s noir and neo-Western. In her early scenes as brutal hitwoman Sam, Gillan’s husky growl and boot-stomping demeanor seem like an act, rather than the earned confidence of a trained, veteran killer.
But it turns out that’s kind of the point. The reason for casting Gillan becomes clear in the film’s standout action set piece, in which Sam must face off against three goons sent to kill her, all while dealing with the inconvenient fact that both of her arms have been temporarily paralyzed. It’s a sequence that pulls its influences not from the sleek Atomic Blonde-style thriller Gunpowder Milkshake initially seems to aspiring towards but from an old-school Jackie Chan vehicle, where the ass-kicking is delivered with comedic flair. Gillan’s wry, gangly energy is a perfect match for a scene that throws its young hitwoman into an impossible situation and then watches as she improbably, hilariously gets out of it. Gunpowder Milkshake comes alive in its darkly comic action sequences, which prioritize creativity as much as brutality, with an uncommon focus on props, locations, and wide compositions.
It’s a shame, then, that director/co-writer Navot Papushado (Big Bad Wolves) struggles to find that same tonal confidence elsewhere. Gunpowder Milkshake is about half as funny and clever as it should be, weighing down its cheeky sense of humor with attempts at genuine pathos that fall flat. Sam is still haunted by memories of the night 15 years earlier when her hitwoman mom, Scarlet (Lena Headey), skipped town, leaving her daughter to be raised by handler Nathan (an underused Paul Giamatti), the middle manager at a corporate crime syndicate called The Firm. Though Sam has dedicated her life to doing The Firm’s dirty work, several intertwined missions-gone-wrong leave her on the run from the organization with an innocent 8-year-old girl named Emily (My Spy’s Chloe Coleman) in tow. Thrown into makeshift motherhood, Sam is determined to do better by Emily than her own mom did by her.
That eventually brings Sam back in touch with her “aunts,” three commanding matriarchs who dress like grown-up Powerpuff Girls and run a stately library that’s also a gun depository and safe house. (Gunpowder Milkshake unfolds against the backdrop of the sort of quirkily polite criminal underworld that has become the norm in our post-John Wick landscape—including a 1950s diner where criminals have to leave their guns with a friendly waitress.) Librarians Madeleine (Carla Gugino), Florence (Michelle Yeoh), and Anna May (Angela Bassett) are introduced with appropriate gravitas and style, although Papushado and co-writer Ehud Lavski struggle to write banter worthy of the legendary women playing them. (At one point Bassett has to earnestly deliver “hunch smunch” as a comeback.) The script is also frustratingly inconsistent when it comes to how well Sam knew these women growing up, and why her mom didn’t just leave her with them instead of Nathan.
None of which would be a problem if Gunpowder Milkshake clipped along at a faster pace and with a little more comedic verve. This is a film that practically begs for the pacing and needledrops of an Edgar Wright comedy; instead it gets bogged down every time it tries to make a larger thematic point about cycles of violence inflicted on women in a patriarchal world. Though Gunpowder Milkshake was written, directed, produced, lensed, edited, and scored by men, the movie’s press has been eager to tout it as a story of “female empowerment.” But there’s not any particular depth to what the movie has to say about the female experience or the nature of relationships between women—certainly far less than in Cathy Yan’s Birds Of Prey, which also featured a group of deadly women coming together to protect a young girl. (While that film depicted a woman putting her hair up mid-fight scene, Gunpowder Milkshake features one inexplicably taking hers down.)
In as much as they exist, Gunpowder Milkshake’s feminist themes are better served by the breezy camaraderie between its leads. Papushado’s biggest stroke of genius is simply casting Headey and Gillan as mother and daughter; the two genre stars share a certain loopy sensibility that makes them immediately believable as family. And there’s cackling fun to be had in Headey whipping out a gun that’s also a knife or Gillan scrambling to survive using a suitcase handle and a bar of gold. The novelty of watching the film’s impressive female ensemble bounce off one another never wears off, even if Gunpowder Milkshake feels like it only ever scratches the surface of what each of its leads can do.
It’s not hard to imagine a sequel amping up the elements that work and downplaying the seriousness that doesn’t. Gunpowder Milkshake has all of the ingredients for a truly great action flick, even if it doesn’t always combine them in quite the right proportions. Key to it all is the way Papushado and fight choreographer Laurent Demianoff ensure that each action scene tells its own story: a subversive Michael Mann-inspired sequence where Sam’s enemies turn out to have internal conflicts of their own; a delightfully innovative parking lot car chase; a beautifully brutal slow motion climax set to Bob Dylan’s “It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue.” Gunpowder Milkshake may be clunky with its words, but it says all it needs to with its style.
102 Comments
Can we please at least stick to one spelling of poor Lena Headey’s surname? Otherwise I’ll be back, and I’ve got a whole lot more pedantry where this came from.
Whatareya worried about?! It’s 1874! You’ll be able to sue her!
Is “I’ll be back” a sly reference to her playing Sarah Connor?
Librarians Madeleine (Carla Gugino), Florence (Michelle Yeoh), and Anna May (Angela Bassett)Oh my.
Yeah, the review is making some very worrisome points about them not being used right but still — that cast! And Headey! Fuck, I’m going to watch this and be disappointed, aren’t I.
I was really looking forward to this and it just doesn’t have the energy or comedy to match the visual style.
Can’t speak for you, but I found Gunpowder Milkshake to have used up all it’s originality in it’s terrible title. Everything else was strictly by the numbers.
The cast, premise, and lifted style all feel like someone pulled the movie directly from my id, and the trailer had me excited. If only I had realized it was a Netflix original, I wouldn’t have gotten my hopes up. As seems to be par for the course with Netflix stuff, the script feels like a first draft that nobody felt the need to refine, and then a bunch of first or early takes that were good enough. Like the whole “librarians” bit was obviously someone ripping off the Sommelier sequence from John Wick, but they didn’t think out the books/guns idea the way Wick’s writers did the wine/guns thing, so there’s no cleverness, creativity, wit, the whole thing is just flat and even though I love all 3 actresses they can’t do anything to elevate it. The whole thing looks cheap. The action is meh, and even the clever ideas like the paralyzed arms bit are failed by lackluster execution. Once I saw it pop up on Netflix and realized it was an original, I tried to adjust my expectations and it still under-delivered. I haven’t finished it yet because my wife and I were bored and went out to eat, but I highly doubt the last 20-30 minutes will make up for the lackluster 80 minutes before them. It also manages to feel too long but doesn’t have much world-building, characters are underdeveloped and their relationships take jumps that feel like scenes are missing, and there’s not enough action.
The last 20-30 minutes only get worse! I went from being disappointed to actively despising this, you lay out its flaws well but what really got to me was the waste and self-congratulation, the faux-feminist (fauxminist?) “girls can kick ass!” vibe that smugly coasts on actors who deserve better and third-hand stylistic bites. Dogshit film. It made me think of a trash 80s flick I saw a while back where, as the trailer so memorably puts it, “The COP is a WOMAN!” and that had more actual action and grit and god help us characterization to it, good wholesome junk. Give it a go instead of wasting your time with this crap.
Carla Gugino wearing sexy librarian glasses… this movie certainly makes some right choices
Ah, the sexy librarian. A sure sign of a female empowerment movie made by men. I would put money on her being the one who lets her hair down during a fight.
Unfortunately its a victim of the Netflix disease: a promising cast and premise was greenlit, everybody high-fived a job well done, and no further thought or effort was put into the whole thing except shooting it in a perfunctory way. She does look adorable in those glasses, though.
Scrolled down to basically say the same thing. They got me with this one.
Karen Gillan Should be in More Things.
It’s great that she seems to have carved out a niche as female characters in predominately male action/adventure movies but she should be the starring lead in everything because she’s awesome. You could tell when watching Doctor Who she was going to be big star and she hasn’t yet.Also, they need to let her do her real, Scottish accent. And have her host SNL
She’s also great in American comedy (NTSF:SD:SUV), Brit comedy (A Touch of Cloth) and horror (Oculus)!
As well as The Party’s Just Beginning (which she wrote, directed and starred in). It’s maybe the best thing she’s done do far.
Never even heard of “The Party’s Just Beginning” — thanks for the recommendation… will now go hunt it down.
So should Michelle Yeoh.
I didn’t know Michelle Yeoh had a Scottish accent!
Stranger Things’ maximalist spin-off?
More Things, now coming this fall on Quibi
Alt-universe assassin movies are the new mid-2000s Snatch ripoffs. Enough already.
Karen Gillan is cool. This looks cool.
“including a 1950s diner where criminals have to leave their guns with a friendly waitress”Yeesh is every movie just the same movie now?
i mean, yeah.
“Theater is for pansies!” – WWE fan“Dance is for pansies!” – action movie fan
“Well-drained soil and partial shade is for pansies!” – botanist
I can’t think of another film genre that’s as shamelessly uncreative as action films.Lethal Weapon gave us 15 years of buddy cop movies.Die Hard gave us 15 years of “Die Hard but on X” movies.Pulp Fiction gave us 15 years of “People commit violent crime to 70s pop” movies.And now John Wick is going to give us 15 years of “Middle-aged star beats up Eurotrash stuntmen in Bucharest” movies.
And now John Wick is going to give us 15 years of “Middle-aged star beats up Eurotrash stuntmen in Bucharest”I’m pretty sure Steven Segal and his range of direct-to-video action “stars” have filled that niche for the last 30 years.
Amen!
Hey, you forgot about Taken.
Good point. Although the interesting thing about all the Taken ripoffs is all of them also star Liam Neeson.
God I hope so…
To be fair, some of the those Eurotrash stuntmen had it coming.
Not to mention Taken, but I can think of one type of film with at least a little less creativity, unless they’ve found some new holes I haven’t heard about
well and now we also have 15 years of ‘mcu has made it so the only other action movies are superhero movies’, as well. can’t for the life of me imagine pulp fiction as an ‘action movie’ in any sense, it certainly got ripped off a lot but i don’t see the connective tissue to many action movies.if anything it was bruckheimer/michael bay’s influence during that period that ruined action movies.
I see your point about Pulp Fiction, but what’s interesting is that most of its ripoffs, like Boondock Saints and Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels, ended up being action movies.
See, I don’t see either Boondock Saints or Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels as remotely “Pulp Fiction ripoffs”. They aren’t even particularly Pulp Fiction-like. Unless, “kinda funny crime movies” started with Quentin Tarantino.
Not to say there weren’t rip-offs, but I’d reserve that for stuff like 2 Days in the Valley.
Pretty sure The Transporter franchise (2002) had the “middle aged action star beating up Eurotrash across the Continent” well in hand before JW (2014) – or Taken (2008) by that matter which preceded JW by six years.
Jason Statham was 34 when the first Transporter came out, so not quite middle-aged.I get your point though, although I’ll argue that the John Wick movies have a very distinct visual aesthetic (flat lighting, drawn out single-take fights, goofy secret organizations in lavish locations) that Gunpowder Milkshake, Atomic Blonde, Polar, and Nobody have all definitely stolen.
Whatever his official paperwork may say, Statham is, has been and always will be 45.
Starting in 1974 there have been 7 Death Wish films. The main difference between John Wick and these films body count.
And now John Wick is going to give us 15 years of “Middle-aged star beats up Eurotrash stuntmen in Bucharest” movies.If anything, that’s more Liam Neeson’s fault. John Wick is giving us “everyone you meet is really nice and also spent their childhood murdering for money”
And now John Wick is going to give us 15 years of “Middle-aged star beats up Eurotrash stuntmen in Bucharest” movies.Uhm, that was Taken. John Wick is a about a cool looking fela wearing sharply dressed suit in stylistic criminal underworld taking out everything throwing at ‘em in stylistically realistic and brutal fashion beat ‘em up/gun-fu.
Lemme guess: the waitresses are all cute rockabilly chicks contrasting the inherent, sweet, cute, innocent femininity of the 1950s with edgy tattoos, fishnet stockings, heavy makeup and facial piercings?You know – like how one might title a movie with “TOUGH THING” (ooh, I dunno – “gunpowder”) and juxtaposition it with “NICE THING” (a milkshake!)
I’ve been wondering why it’s called Gunpowder Milkshake, actually— like is it something meaningless but “badass”-sounding that someone thought would be cool and then stopped thinking about it, or…. is it something served at that diner, maybe, and/or is somehow germane to the story. My guess is the former, but I guess I’ll have to watch and find out. Maybe.
See also:
The killer likes to drink milkshakes and shooting people.
Hotel Artemis is in the same world but I’m not confident restaurants still exist.
In the not too distant past Arizona had a check your gun when you went into a bar. My hoodlum friend was really upset saying it caused him to buy a second gun: one to check and one for “self defense”.
This cast is amazing and the plot seems a lot of fun but I’m disappointed it’s on Netflix and will just be part of their weekly content dump and thus disappear in a week or so as it gets replaced by the next round of content dumps. There’s nothing really playing in movie theaters right now and it’s a shame it won’t get the traditional Hollywood roll out
it’ll be disposable and looks disposable…but everybody will probably watch it. That’s how they got me to watch those shitty HBOMax WB releases.
But still, it doesn’t look like the kind of movie that deserves to be sucked into the black hole that is Netflix. There’s a lot of crap out there in theaters and I didn’t get vaccinated just so I could stay home and try and figure out the Netflix homepage
…but they are releasing it theatrically tomorrow?edit: ah my bad, looks like theatrical release is only outside of the US/Canada
The trailer tricked me into thinking it was a Real Movie, but after watching its definitely just not-ready-for-primetime/theaters Netflix Content that would severely disappoint anyone who paid for a ticket. Hell, I rent Direct to Video action trash on a regular basis and I think $2 at a Redbox would be too much for this movie.
“the middle manager at a corporate crime syndicate called The Firm”There better be a Wilford Brimley cameo filmed before he died here.
Or afterwards, although that would tend to limit his roles to things like “corpse #1″ and the like.
True story, Wilford was actually killed by Chuck Norris when he guest starred on Walker in 1995. All his subsequent credits were posthumous.
When Wilford Brimley was in Cocoon, he was younger than Tom Cruise is now.
This movie had me at Michelle Yeoh. Can’t wait to tear into it.
If it were a series, Netflix would cancel it after one season.
Philosophically, isn’t a Netflix “movie” just a Netflix series with only one episode before being cancelled? Unless it gets sequels.
Glad to hear it’s good!
Karen Gillan stars in it = one viewing from me.
Looking forward to this, what a cast. Next I want a Nebula movie, and maybe she could meet her mother also played by Lena Headey
I genuinely wish Guardians of the Galaxy would just sideline Star-Lord and hand the films over to Nebula and Gamora.
Star-Lord and Drax both increasingly annoy the shit out of me. Nebula and Gamora are the best things about those movies
…which would leave Rocket and Groot free to permanently team up with Thor, so works for me.
Great interview with Karen Gillan where she discusses her daily routine, which includes writing horror scripts for her to direct, but not too late into the evening or else she will scare herself & not be able to sleep. She is a delight https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/entertainment/inside-scots-star-karen-gillans-22940905
(While that film depicted a woman putting her hair up mid-fight scene, Gunpowder Milkshake features one inexplicably taking hers down.)
That scene was one of the things a lot of women loved from Birds of Prey. This is just one of the reasons why there should be more women directors.
And yet we still don’t have the most common-sense approach: if you’re going to be spending a lot of your time running around and fighting for your life, just get an appropriate fucking haircut for it. Then, if some situation calls for it, wear a wig.
With her character explicitly named Anna May, I have to assume that someone at some point directs Bassett to eat some cake, at which point she destroys them.
I will be watching this with interest for so many reasons. I love this style of action movie. I love the whole cast. I don’t care about the quality of the plot. Bring it on!
Didn’t watched the movie but i would like to point out that “quirkily polite criminal underworld” has been a common thing in mangas and anime for a while and it would be cool if most critics could discuss this.
i would like to point out that “quirkily polite criminal underworld” has been a common thing in mangas and anime for a while
I think it’s a The Matrix effect. They didn’t invent that whole aesthetic, but it was the first insanely popular movie to utilize it. Therefore every subsequent movie with that color palette and black trenchcoats and cool sunglasses was automatically “ripping off The Matrix”.
Right??
All the commenters quickly stating they must watch because of such and such actress being in this are going to be sorely disappointed. I barely made it thru a watch and almost turned it off too many times to count. It tries SO hard to be cool and is just ridiculous drivel. Huge waste of brilliant actresses and a waste of my time.
you wrote my review brilliantly. here’s your star.
Pretty much this, only maybe I’d dial it back a notch or two. It wasn’t awful, but it was disappointing and forgettable.
Yeah I was surprised to see the B review here, this was at best a C and when I think about the cast they wasted I want to drop it down to D territory.
Nobody should be doing anything Jackie Chan related after his recent ****ing cowardly talking about how he’s CCP for life. Dude lived in HONG KONG where they had actual freedom until the CCP broke the deal with the UK. He just wants to keep his money and this is the only way he can now. So to hell with Jackie Chan… POS cheering on genocide. Unbelievable.
Jackie Chan isn’t faking support for the CCP, he genuinely believes and honestly it’s not surprising given his background.
But we British have to wait until September? And cocking Sky are streaming it? FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU
Fuck I’ll have to watch the third fucking Fear Street thing instead I guess.
Has netflix made any good movies? I can think of a couple that weren’t bad but every time I see a movie that starts with the word Netflix, my estimation of it drops dramatically.
I was pleasantly surprised to see this get a B (as a fan of Karen Gillan)…but then I read the review and it reads more like a C+. Is it good or not?
I absolutely loved the casting but thought the action was pretty terrible, both in terms of choreography and how the fights were shot. Looked severely under-rehearsed. Also absolutely criminal squandering of Michelle Yeoh.
I mean, I gave it a go, and did want to like it. But yikes, it feels like a fan-made film with a weirdly, distractingly good cast, going through the motions of what a film this genre should do, and looking cheap as it does it.
The review is pretty spot on. Not great. Too slow, and too much slo-mo. Could have been so much better.
It may not exactly “To Kill A Mockingbird”, but I was greatly entertained. The paralyzed arms scene was phenomenal.
Great cast! Bad film.
How you made a Jackie Chan connection is perplexing.
Basically from that one slapstick fight scene.
The car chase had a bit of a Jackie Chan vibe to it as well.
This movie is the perfect encapsulation of Netflix:Conceptually- a mix of elements from at least 2 successful movies, check.Screenplay that needs a few more months of development, check.Amazing cast, check.High production budget, check.Mediocre production values, check.
I took it not as Madeline simply taking her hair done, but that the bobby pins she took out were actually the firing pins.
The most disappointing movie of 2021 so far! Netflix should be legally required to attach their name to all their movie trailers on youtube so I don’t get excited. I thought this was a Real Movie until I saw it pop up on Netflix on release day, tried to adjust my expectations accordingly, and it still sucked. I didn’t think you could make a John Wick rip-off with a cast this great and have it be boring, but they found a way.
People keep calling this a John Wick knockoff, but the movie this most reminds me of tonally is another Giamatti film. The Clive Owen/Monica Bellucci action comedy Shoot ‘Em Up has pretty much been forgotten but its DNA is all over GM: the intentionally cartoonish violence, the surreal near-fantasy setting of the nameless cityscape, the deadpan dialogue.
My god! Do we really suck, or is this guy really that good?
Finally gave this a watch. The “John Wick” influences are obvious, but a very clear tonal inspiration was “Kill Bill.” Unfortunately, they cribbed a few Tarantino-esque visual and musical elements but flubbed the execution. If the director had been more of a student of the same films that inspired Tarantino, the movie might have been stylish and cool. Instead, it’s just an imitation of better films.