Gunpowder Milkshake is a stylish Netflix action epic that attempts to evoke John Wick but ends up being stuck in its shadow.
Within the first few moments, both the story and Navot Papushado’s direction recall the Wick series. The film’s performances and tone carry a serious, almost foreboding delivery that make the work of its assassins no laughing matter. Even when Karen Gillan mysterious assassin, Sam, delivers smarmy action one-liners, it’s with this monotone seriousness that never breaks and it’s basically the same with everyone else. This tone can be a little hit or miss, as some of Gillan’s lines and the way everyone uses alternative curse words around children can be pretty funny.
However, this isn’t exactly an overly serious film, since there are little dashes of fun uniqueness in how this assassin world is built. Although there’s the pretty standard shady organization known as “The Firm” hiring assassins like Sam to take out targets, beneath it all, there’s a trio of female assassins that run a weapons armory through a library. Not only is this trio made up of Angela Bassett, Michelle Yeoh, and Carla Gugino–who are just chewing through the scenery in every scene–but they also flesh out some interesting world-building. The idea of their books containing guns, money, and other important items is really fun and the idea that there’s also a diner made for peaceful conversations between assassins and their clients is awesome.
There’s a lot of potential for a visually unique assassin action world that sadly isn’t realized to its fullest. Although the assassin trio and their library are an interesting concept for a meeting place of generation-spanning female assassins, they aren’t explored much, and the characters don’t have much depth. They definitely bring the cool factor in action scenes, but only stand out because of who they’re played by. Even the concept of them hiding books in guns isn’t tackled in a way that makes these sequences more than just basic weapons acquisition. Every time the trio gives Sam a weapon, they generally point her to a specific author or section. Although we’d expect these books to contain weapons that carry some kind of meaning or tie to the author or section’s personality, they mostly just contain generic guns.
It’s a shame that these unique elements don’t get the depth they deserve, since they could’ve helped support something this film severely lacks: engaging characters. One of the big ways that the overly serious tone works against the film is that its characters just aren’t as fun as the scenery. Their personalities are the same maybe outside of Sam’s estranged mother Scarlet (Lena Headey), so no one stands out beyond the person playing them. Without more personality and engaging characters, the film is just a generic assassin gone rogue story.
The whole idea of Sam becoming a target after a job gone wrong and going rogue by saving the daughter of a target she killed is something we’ve seen play out plenty of times. Gunpowder Milkshake doesn’t add anything new to this concept and even the parts of Sam reconciling with Scarlet don’t go anywhere or have any personal, emotional depth. Really, the only thing that gives Gunpowder Milkshake a pulse is the action.
There are a couple of really fun sequences that add in some strange characters and unique action antics. We get to see a group of thieves wearing the masks of classic horror icons turn on each other in a delightfully destructive way. There’s a hospital fight that forces Sam to fight injured goons without her arms that’s a ton of fun and wild as hell. However, there just aren’t enough fight scenes to make the film’s runtime less of a drag and there’s a huge fight sequence that occurs towards the end of the film that’s so amazing to watch and rad that it should’ve been the finale rather than a false finale that makes you groan when your realize there are still twenty minutes to go.
Gunpowder Milkshake unfortunately isn’t as fun, wild, or weird as its name and can’t capitalize on its familiar faces or world-building potential to create a memorable assassin action thriller in a world where John Wick continues to dominate.
