Gunpowder Milkshake

I mentioned in my review of Nobody that John Wick (both the character and the film franchise) casts a long shadow. In much the same way that Reservoir Dogs spawned a legion of hyper violent crime capers with snappy dialog, ironic pop music needle drops and abundant pop culture references, John Wick created overnight it’s own subgenre of stylish action films about taciturn deadly assassins existing in underground secret societies guided by their own economics and codes of honour, with a lot of worldbuilding and a sprinkling of mythical gravitas over the top.

Gunpowder Milkshake tries to put it’s own twist on the formula and when it works it REALLY works, but unfortunately has some glaring misfires that keep it from really standing on it’s own. As is usually the case when I see a film that I am somewhere in the middle on, it usually means I have a lot more to say.

This also comes with the caveat that I’m writing this from the perspective of a cishet, white dude and so I would advise readers to take my reading as one among many and anything but definitive. Seeking out other viewpoints from more marginalized perspectives is always a good idea to see things I might have missed.

The movie is currently available on Netflix, so I would say it is worth a watch if this kind of actioner is your thing. On the balance of things, I found the movie picks up enough in the second half to make it worth a look. From here on I will be digging into spoilers so let’s bring out the horn.

The Setup

The film follows Sam (played by Karen Gillan), an assassin who works for The Firm, a faceless psuedo-corporate cabal of underworld criminals. Early in the film, Sam is abandoned at a diner by her mother Scarlet (Lena Headey) after a job went wrong and Scarlet is forced to fight off the goon squad sent to kill her and go into hiding.

Sam is adopted by Nathan (Paul Giamatti), the head of HR for The Firm who puts her to work as a contract killer and becomes her handler. Jumping ahead to present day, Sam is given a contract to find an accountant named David who had stolen money from The Firm. In preparation for the job she stops by The Library to get new weapons and meets Madeleine (Carla Gugino), Anna May (Angela Bassett) and Florence (Michelle Yeoh), the 3 women her mother used to work with. It takes a minute for them to recognize her, but once they do, they agree to get her set up with some new “boomsticks” (which the pedantic nerd in me feels compelled to point out is a reference to shotguns, none of which are obtained).

Upon confronting David, he lunges for his phone and Sam shoots him in the gut after a short tussle only to find out that David had stolen the money to pay the ransom for his daughter Emily.

Sam drops David off at an underworld doctor’s office associated with The Firm. The doctors office is designed to resemble a dental office complete with giant tooth for people to drop their guns in. Sam leaves to fulfill David’s request and get Emily back (as well as recover the money for The Firm). Meanwhile, a henchman Sam killed earlier in the film is revealed to be the son of powerful rival crime figure figure Jim McAleister (Ralph Ineson). In order to avoid war between the two organizations, Nathan throws Sam under the bus and turns The Firm’s resources toward delivering her to McAleister. That sets off our main plot with Sam acting as Emily’s protector while trying to stay ahead of The Firm and McAleister’s goons.

Problem #1 – Too much plot, not enough fun

If the description of the story setup all sounds like a lot, you’re starting to get a picture for where Gunpowder Milkshake falls down on the job. There are a lot of moving parts in this film to get us to the main plot, and they aren’t always connected smoothly or explained enough to make following along a rewarding experience. A bit of mental legwork on the part of the audience isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but this movie clicks along at such a fast pace to set up the basic premise that crucial plot details get lost in the blur.

I can’t help but think that there’s at least one separate plot thread too many and most of the problems with this movie are concentrated within the first 30-45 minutes. I think the most economical solution would be either to have David be Jim McAleister’s son (and Emily his granddaughter) which would tie McAleister in more personally, or his son to be one of the kidnappers.

As it is, Jim McAleister’s son is killed in an early introductory scene (off screen) and we are never shown which henchman was his son. Turns out that what seemed like an introductory montage of Sam killing randos was important to the plot, but it sure isn’t presented that way. While learning how Sam is being thrown under the bus for a job she was given by Nathan lends sympathy to Sam’s situation of being used as a scapegoat, the backwards and off screen nature of everything makes it clunky and really stalls out the momentum of the movie. If this had been in a theater and not at home on Netflix, I would have been completely lost as I had to rewind to catch it among the exposition dump Nathan provides.

Problem #2 – Sam/Karen Gillan

While I’m talking about problems with the film, I need to talk about Karen Gillan. I want to preface by saying I like Karen Gillan. I think she’s a very charming and charismatic actress. It’s not that her casting is a problem, or that she’s bad in this. She shines in the scenes that allow her to play to her comedy chops and energy, but utterly awful whenever the script turns her into a glowering killjoy that does not suit her.

The films idea of Sam as a grumbling, deadpan, ice cold Terminator is completely incongruous with the energy Karen Gillan brings. It’s like somebody watched her underplaying Nebula in the MCU – where her deadpan character exists among dozens of energetic personalities to counterbalance – and just told her to play Sam in the same detached way. Only now, instead of one character among an ensemble, she’s the lead and it really doesn’t work.

Karen Gillan is Scottish and has a bubbly sparkling personality and both of those things would be a more welcoming take than the dull as dishwater Sam we get. I don’t know if it’s a byproduct of trying to Americanize her accent, or what, but there is a real try hard quality to Sam that would be interesting if it were worked into the character as a projection to be gradually discarded but it carries on through the film.

She has been better in roles other than Nebula (such as her role as Ruby Roundhouse in Jumanji or as Amy Pond in Dr. Who) that showcase her ability to be fun and charismatic. I can’t help but think the film would have been better served by having her tap into that and just…being herself a bit more. The movie almost hints at that possibility, showing Sam stitching herself up after a job, eating cereal in a onesie and watching cartoons, but then she goes on to grumble out some cringelord one liners and it’s bad. It’s really bad.

A more lively and smart assed Sam would not only have fit Gillan’s skill set better and added some much needed energy to the non fight scenes, but it would have fit the overall tone much better. I don’t know if she really wanted to be John Wick, or if the director Navot Papushado wanted her to be John Wick, or if the studio wanted her to be John Wick. Whoever made that call, it doesn’t work and considering she is the lead character with a majority of the screen time, this one creative mistake creates such a feeling of whiplash that it permeates the entire runtime.

The ultimate takeaway after seeing a few Wick clones recently, is that not everyone can sell growly action hero one liners like Keanu did (a similar problem Bob Odenkirk had in Nobody) but all the John Wick imitators keep trying anyway.

Problem #3 – Please Stop Trying To Be John Wick

I hate to keep dropping John Wick comparisons (though as mentioned, it’s pretty much unavoidable when the clones come out to play), but John Wick was designed from the ground up as a character to work within Keanu Reeves skill set as an actor (screen presence, intensity and physicality YAY, lengthy dialog scenes NAY). It really felt like Gunpowder Milkshake was built around just finding someone to mash into a John Wick shaped mold in this movie, rather than crafting a role to suit the personality of the actor. It squanders an amazing cast in service of imitating the gritty style and format of a series that tonally doesn’t fit the bright and playful aesthetic they are going for.

John Wick’s entire tonal presentation is taking the trappings of the bougie upper crust signifiers of status (high priced hotels, sommeliers, custom tailored suits, neon drenched rave clubs) and putting an underworld mythical spin on them. In accordance with this sleek presentation, the tone of the Wick films stay firmly in the high drama range to match. Characters speak with either Shakespearean gravitas or clipped cryptic euphemisms. It’s a series that frequently evokes allegories to Greek myth and spiritual themes of heaven and hell. The soundtrack is all grindy metal, dubstep and ethereal pop songs. The tone plays it straight and dramatic, with the comic elements often underplayed with subtle irony rather than outright absurdity (think The Sommelier talking to John Wick about various weapons in code as though he were describing wine varieties). The exceptions to the above are limited to street level characters such a Laurence Fishbourne’s Bowery King and John Leguizamo’s mechanic Aurelio.

Gunpowder Milkshake – by contrast – evokes (metaphorically and literally) images of quaint mundanity and a romanticizing of a more analog, less corporate world. The aesthetic is bowling jackets, roadside diners with cheap laminate tables, bowling alleys, no-tell motel honeymoon suites, derelict video stores, buzzing neon signs advertising beer and Coca-Cola, libraries full of dusty old books and a vibrant colour palette that owes more to Willy Wonka than it does James Bond. More than one action scene is set to a mariachi band and the rest of the soundtrack is mostly 60’s hippie tracks. The aesthetic choices here run more toward scrappy and irreverent, which makes it a complete whiplash when the story tries to get all weighty on us.

All of the various Wick imitators have failed to realize that the archetype was created to suit the actor and the world built around him to match his energy, rather than forcing the actor into a pre-ordained mold. The first imitator to recognize that and break the mold in interesting ways will be the one that manages to break free from the pack and stand on it’s own. Unfortunately, this is not that film.

The Good Stuff – Bugs Bunny AF

I feel like I’ve been pretty tough on this movie so far, so let’s talk about some of the stuff I liked.

The good news is, once the cluttered and convoluted setup is out of the way and Sam is brought together with Emily and the Library team, things get much better.

Gunpowder Milkshake does know how to cut loose and have fun with the the formula interesting ways. This is a film that is at it’s best when it leans into the comic and whimsical and falls short when it tries too hard to be cool. Karen Gillan comes alive when the set pieces kick off and she is able to use her gifts for physical comedy to give Sam a bit of life and personality that she doesn’t have outside of the fights.

Take for example, a neon blanketed fight in a bowling alley where Sam fends off 3 goons (nicknamed The Boneheads and much more fun than any of the other antagonists) with a plastic Panda backpack. She dodges and weaves out of their attacks with the grace of Bugs Bunny. The fight itself is prefaced by some seriously cringeworthy dialog and a menacing glare that Gillan never quite pulls off successfully, but once it kicks off, it is madcap fun. It’s much more in line with Jackie Chan fighting off goons with an umbrella it is John Wick doing nightmarish things to people with a pencil. The scene is ended by Sam slowly bowling a ball into a goon’s skull for the final knockout, which gets in a fun Big Lebowski reference and also adds a level of panache and punctuation to a fun scene I consider the real start of the movie.

This is also a good time to bring up GM’s other strong point, which is production design and lighting. While vibrant neon colour schemes aren’t new to the neo-noir aesthetic, Gunpowder Milkshake makes use of a vibrant colour palette that makes everything feel a bit otherworldly. From the Library, which manages to seem cozy and cavernous at once, to the sterile white and green claustrophobic hallway of the dental office, each location feels interesting and unique to look at.

Speaking of the doctor’s office, his location provides another bright spot in the film (no pun intended). The Boneheads turn up at the doctor’s office to get patched up (after taking a nip of the doctor’s laughing gas supply) and the doctor (Michael Smiley) agrees to help them ambush Sam by dosing her with a tranquilizer agent that will make her arms numb. (Why it stops at the arms specifically, I couldn’t tell you.) Anyway, the resulting scene where a noodle armed Sam has to fight off the 3 giggling nitwits trussed up in various medical devices with a scalpel and gun taped to either hand, is absolutely batshit bonkers in the best way. Equal parts slapstick comedy and tense action which is where Gunpowder Milkshake finds it’s sweet spot (pun…intended). It’s in these scenes that Sam feeling like an action hero more following in the footsteps of Jackie Chan than Keanu Reeves feels like an entirely better fit. If they ever make a sequel, more of this please.

A further example of the movie’s sense of humour is following the bowling alley brawl. Sam makes the swap of Emily for the money as she and the kidnappers (who all wear Universal monster movie masks) load their respective cargos into shopping carts and wheel them to each other. In a bit of self aware genre spoofing, Sam chases after the kidnappers, trying to get the money back, only to find that they’ve already turned on each other, crashed their car and two of the kidnappers (Frankenstein’s Monster and Dracula) are shooting it out. Sam just stops and lets things play out in a funny little moment. After a grenade destroys Frankenstein and the money, an exasperated Sam goes full Buffy and dispatches Dracula by staking him in the heart with a broom handle.

This movie knows how to have a good time…when it wants to.

And of course, I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the Diner scene (which is better seen and not described). While it does tip into style over substance a bit, the single lateral dolly shot along the length of the Diner while a slow motion ballet of chaos unfolds is a treat to behold.

The Good Stuff – The Library

The fact that I’ve managed to get this far into this piece without mentioning the killer quartet of Lena Headey, Angela Bassett, Michelle Yeoh and Carla Gugino is both an indictment of myself and this film for not having it’s priorities straight.

If I were being completely honest, I would have to classify this one as a mixed success. Headey, Bassett, Yeoh and Gugino are all great actresses who really should have had more to do. That said, when they do show up, they make the most of what they are given.

The Library, and the women who run it is one of the more interesting worldbuilding devices that the film gets less out of than it should. It is a depot for assassins to turn over their old weapons and get new ones and they appear to be a subsidiary branch of The Firm. In a fun little bit, the books are hollowed out with various weapons and other resources stashed inside. Which I suppose begs the question: What if someone actually wants to read Charlotte Bronte? Is there a weapons section and a non weapons section, or do they just know which books are hiding important things? In a funny bit, after the ladies have finished picking out various “books” for Sam, Madeleine throws one on top “and an Agatha Christie…for reading”.

Considering Agatha Christie was known for her crime and detective mysteries, hers being the book that doesn’t have a weapon stashed in it and is there for reading was funny to me.

If ever there was a film that “buried the lede” it’s one that has these 4 women as ass kicking librarians who don’t do anything of note until the end of the 2nd act. Aside from Carla Gugino’s Madeleine who gets the most actual character stuff to do (she greets Sam, and later protects Emily during a fight meaning she gets two more scenes of character development than Anna May and Florence), we don’t learn much about the Library trio outside of combat. Unfortunately, in Madeleine’s case it’s the old trope of “build up the character you are going to kill off” (I did warn you about spoilers). The Library squad certainly deliver in the kicking ass department, but I would have liked a little bit less Firm corporate intrigue and would have gladly taken a more streamlined villain narrative in exchange for more of the Librarians.

Lena Headey’s Scarlet suffers much the same fate. As one last good deed for his adoptive daughter, Nathan gives Sam the address of a “survival package” to help her and it turns out to be the address where Scarlet has been hiding out. We get some clarity on the job that sent Scarlet into hiding. She tracked down the man who killed Sam’s father and killed him knowing he was affiliated with The Firm. This does provide a nice bit of symmetry as it provides some areas of growth for Sam as she is presented a few opportunities to take revenge on those who have wronged her.

While Lena Headey’s screen time (much like the Librarians) is criminally truncated, she does immediately slot into the odd little family dynamic with Sam and Emily. While Gillan’s emotionless delivery still never quite feels right, it does get more tolerable when she has more lively characters to bounce off of.

The Library showdown itself is a show stopper. The makers of GM did at least make each Librarian shine in the big action scene (set to the needle drop of Janis Joplin’s “Take Another Little Piece of My Heart”). Rough and tumble Anna May grabs a couple of hammers and goes to town on the invading baddies, while Florence makes use of martial arts skill and a chain in creative ways, meanwhile Madelaine prefers firepower and when that runs out, a tomahawk as a last resort. Meanwhile, Scarlet jumps into the fray (literally) using a pair of red dragon engraved pistols with knife attachments to commit a bit of the ol’ stabby-shooty.

One other interesting aspect to the Librarians is the subtle hints toward romantic entanglements among them. Before the big fight, Florence and Madeleine have a quiet moment where private words are whispered that neither the other characters or we as the audience are privy to. Along the same line, Anna May reacts to the re-appearance of Scarlet less like a friend, and more like a ghosted lover.

Sam’s description of “the aunts”, also harkens back to when people used to speak in euphemisms to avoid acknowledging same sex romances. “Aunts”, “Uncles”, “roommates”, etc.

As a final note, I have to make particular mention of Carla Gugino’s heartbreaking final moment with Emily. Madeleine finds herself out of ammo, having taken a bullet in the chest. There’s a sad, endearing moment where she closes her cardigan to keep Emily from seeing the blood, caresses Emily’s cheek and grabs the tomahawk. As the last line of defense for Emily, Madeleine realizes she’s probably done for in that moment and Carla Gugino is so good in that short little moment, that it legit made me tear up.

The Good Stuff – 8 and 3/4

Finally, I would be remiss if I didn’t mention Chloe Coleman, who shines as 8 year old Emily (or 8 and three quarters as she reminds Sam in a running bit) who functions as something of a moral center of the film.

Emily’s sense of mercy acts as a tempering force for Sam on more than one occasion. While her absolving of Sam’s role in killing her father comes off a bit too clean, Emily does manage to be more than just an angel on the shoulder pulling the other heroes toward their better selves or an object to be protected. She’s given moments to shine such as an extended action scene in a parkade when she has to hop into Sam’s lap and steer the car while Sam’s arms are numb.

Emily also provides a much needed comic foil for Sam. The scene where she asks if Sam is a serial killer, provides a fun deconstruction of the genre trope of the professional assassing that we kind of just take as a benign occupation. Sam’s flustered denial that she’s totally not a serial killer because she kills people for money and that’s a completely different thing is both funny and a nice big of meta commentary.

Final Thoughts

Gunpowder Milkshake tries to do a little too much and suffers for it. The movie tries to be a Charlie’s Angels feminist ensemble ass kicker, a John Wick moody neo-noir and a Jackie Chan slapstick action comedy. The result is a mash up that never feels fully comfortable stepping out of the neon shadow of Mr. Wick, but adheres too close to that formula to fully be it’s own thing. The writing veers from sometimes clever, to cringeworthy.

Some of the worldbuilding elements present hints at deeper theme and meaning, but never fully land them. The commentary of The Firm being modeled on a faceless corporate bureaucracy where HR throws women under the bus when they become inconvenient is in there, but feels lost in the shuffle of so many connecting plot threads. Paul Giamatti’s Nathan is so underdeveloped that any commentary his character might contribute to never really has a chance to get off the ground. On the bright side, his complicated frenemy relationship with Sam could potentially be explored in a follow up, should one be made.

Jim McAleister is a weak antagonist, who has to monologue in the diner about how he plans to do terrible things to Sam (stopping just shy of threatening rape) in a moment that is far too heavy for this movie and I can’t help but see as a desperate attempt to make him threatening after he is absent for most of the film. Of all of the film’s plot problems, too many antagonists and none of them developed enough is a major one.

At least the Boneheads were fun. Rest in Peace dumb-dumbs.

On the plus side, there is the fun thematic relevance of the protagonists making their stands dressed as librarians and waitresses – two occupations often associated with femininity in pop culture. The movie uses those locales as ironic backdrops to the usual masculine tropes of action film set pieces, which I think is kind of a fun twist on the formula.

The film attempts to address deeper themes of patriarchy and power structures such as in Sam’s line describing The Firm: “They are a group of men. They make all the rules and then they change the rules when it suits their needs.” Some attempt at deeper meaning here, but like most of the plot elements it gets lost in the shuffle and ends up undercooked and heavy handed.

Overall, the film is at it’s best when it leans into the irreverent sense of humour and the action scenes will be worth a re-watch down the line. I can guarantee that any subsequent viewings will likely skip the first 30 or so minutes, because that’s where the problems actively drag the movie down. The story setup is an overstuffed mess that would have benefitted greatly from a bit of streamlining and less badass posturing (complete with plentiful slow-motion walking scenes in silhouette) and more heart and character depth.

I would say, I land slightly more on the recommend side on this one. It’s got problems, but if you’re willing to overlook a bit of mess, there’s some good stuff in here worth at least checking out. As I mentioned in my look at Nobody, I’m a sucker for these kinds of unexpected action hero movies. This one takes it’s time getting going, but once it does the highs are really high.

P.S. – I got really tired of having to type and italicize a long title like Gunpowder Milkshake so many times in this piece. Pain in the ass.