Peppermint

A sugar-and-spice soccer mom (Jennifer Garner) sees her husband and daughter gunned down by Hispanic drug-thugs, and the experience turns her into a murderous martial-arts vigilante, an expert with all kinds of weapons. Director Pierre Morel and writer Chad St. John gloss over this bizarre transition, which should have been the real story, and go straight to the bloodshed; even the reason for it is tossed off in a by-the-way flashback. St. John rehashes tropes from better (though not necessarily good) movies: Death Wish, Taken, John Wick, Kidnap, Breaking In; there’s nothing he won’t steal from rather than come up with something of his own (he couldn’t even think of a decent title). Morel supplies the relentless sadism, while both are probably responsible for the crude and disgusting ethnic stereotypes.