Gunpowder Milkshake Movie Review: Silly but fairly entertaining

Gunpowder Milkshake. Picture courtesy/PR

Gunpowder Milkshake
Censor: A
Cast: Karen Gillan, Lena Headey, Chloe Coleman, Carla Gugino, Michelle Yeoh, Angela Bassett, Paul Giamatti, Ralph Ineson
Director: Navot Papushado
Rating: 2.5/5

Actually, the title says it all. The world of "Gunpowder Milkshake" is pretty much ridiculous and calls for a huge suspension of disbelief. It's a totally women fronted actioner headlined by a strong cast and fits into a ‘chic action drama' slot that divines it's energy from post-production mastered heroics rather than performance capture.

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The attempt by Israeli director Navot Papushado to set up totems that never quite achieve their full glory is a little disappointing to say the least. Gun toting librarians may be cool but John Wick like female assassins here are not- especially when they keep on fighting another fight even after being mortally wounded. And that wouldn't have been so bad if the tone was consistent. You've certainly got to suspend your disbelief for the entire run of play and that's asking for way too much.

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Professional assassin, Scarlet (Lena Headey) is forced to abandon her daughter Sam (Karen Gillan) - left in the care of Nathan (Paul Giamatti) at the Firm, and go on the run. 15 Years later, we see a grown up Sam playing the same tune her mother did, as a cold blooded assassin. After her high-stakes mission puts an innocent 8-year-old girl Emily's (Chloe Coleman) life on the line she is compelled to go rogue and turns to assassins masquerading as librarians - Florence (Michelle Yeoh), Anna May (Angela Bassett), and Madeleine (Carla Gugino) - all colleagues of her mother, in order to root out those who took everything from them.

The cinematography by Michael Serensin and production design lend the narrative a striking panorama of colors and style. The spectacle happy, ammunition spewing fights are thrilling enough but there's little soul to this engagement. Papushado and Ehud Lavski's script lacks sharpness and bite and the characters don't quite stand tall in all that orchestrated pandemonium. The action set-pieces make it interesting but the intermittently flagging runtime drags the momentum down. At best, this is a fitfully engaging ball-busting actioner!

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