Watch Trigger Warning on Netflix
Written by: John Brancato & Josh Olson and Halley Wegryn Gross
Directed by: Mouly Surya
Starring: Jessica Alba, Mark Webber, Anthony Michael Hall, Jake Weary
Rated: TV-MA
Watch the trailer
Plot
A skilled Special Forces commando takes ownership of her father's bar after he suddenly dies, and she soon finds herself at odds with a violent gang running rampant in her hometown.
Verdict
This starts out rough around the edges and it doesn't get any better. It's a banal revenge concept that doesn't attempt to be creative, interesting, fun, or humorous. I have to imagine the only reason this exists is to fill space in a digital catalog, and the movie hopes that the stars in it will be enough to trick you into watching.
Skip it.
Review
The description made this seem like Netflix's counter to Amazon's Road House, but it's a lot like Rambo: Last Blood, and that's not a compliment.
This starts with Parker (Jessica Alba) on a military mission in some unknown sandy location. The close ups of her in the truck look low budget - and this is the first scene. We see that Parker is trained and has killing skills after her truck is attacked. She's a one person killing machine, though sharpening her knife on the drive back is just too much. No one would have a whetstone during an operation nor would they sharpen it in a vehicle on the way back.
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| Jessica Alba plays Parker |
This never escapes the feeling of being a made-for-tv movie. There's no tension, and everything happens so easily. Parker's father dies, and I would thinking being in the military it would take her longer than an afternoon to return home. When in doubt Parker beats people up, which is good as the dialog is terrible. No one talks or acts like normal people. Upon her return home she attacks someone in the dark who happens to be a friend. Then they chat in the dark which just seems odd. Her father's bar doesn't seem to be operational initially, but further into the movie it seem to be operational as the plot requires.
The core of the story is Parker's father's mine which happens to be behind the bar. At first I wondered if he was actually mining things, but it seems to be his man cave, but he also stepped up security which raises a lot of questions. Who has a hobby mine? Why does it need security?
The first fight scene is the best. It's fairly creative as Parker uses the environment of a hardware store to defeat a group of thieves. It's convenient that they show up her first night back and she clocks them with so little effort. She also knows a hacker from the military that she contacts as needed. This is a movie I feel like I've seen before as it just pulls from other revenge movies. It lacks creativity.
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| Jake Weary, Anthony Michael Hall, Jessica Alba, Mark Webber play Elvis, Senator, Parker, Jesse |
Parker discovers that Elvis Swann (Jake Weary) is selling weapons, and he's gotten away with it because his Senator dad (Anthony Michael Hall) is running for office. Since dad is an ultra-conservative it's easy to assume he's involved in the gun running. Jesse (Mark Webber), the town cop, is his brother. The bad guys do bad things because the plot needs it. Parker kills them because what else would the protagonist do? The last act is boring. There's no suspense or intrigue. There's no reason to care about these characters.
It's just silly and uninspired. This movie took the bare bones of an idea and failed to develop it past that. These characters have the depth of a cartoon. Watching this movie, you realize what goes into an amazing movie as well as the talent a great director, cinematographer, writers, and actors bring. Everything works in concert to deliver an engaging experience. This movie is the opposite of that. It keeps getting more ridiculous as the movie quickly writes itself out of anything that could be remotely challenging by bending logic so far it nearly breaks.
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