Peppermint is a 2018 American vigilante action thriller film directed by Pierre Morel and starring Jennifer Garner. Also featuring John Ortiz, John Gallagher Jr., Juan Pablo Raba, and Tyson Ritter, the plot follows a mother who transforms herself into a vigilante in a quest for revenge against the drug cartel that killed her daughter and husband.

The film was released in the United States on September 7, 2018. It grossed $53 million worldwide and received generally negative reviews from critics, but more positive reviews from audiences. The film was released on Netflix in 2020, as well as other platforms.

Plot

An unidentified woman engages in a brutal fight with a man in a car. After a fierce struggle, she manages to shoot him in the head.

Five years earlier, the same woman, Riley North, is working as a banker in Los Angeles, struggling to make ends meet. Her husband Chris owns a failing mechanic shop, and together, they have a ten-year-old daughter, Carly. Chris s friend tries to coerce him into robbing Diego Garcia, a powerful drug lord. Chris turns him down; however, Garcia, having already discovered his involvement, orders his men to make an example of him. When Riley and Chris take Carly out to a carnival for her birthday, Diego s men gun down the family in a drive-by shooting, killing Carly and Chris and injuring Riley.

Despite her injuries, Riley is able to positively identify the shooters. The LAPD detectives handling the case are hesitant to pursue charges against the three, as they are members of Garcia s drug cartel, which wields considerable power and influence. Prior to the preliminary hearing, Riley is visited by the perpetrators lawyer, who tries to bribe her. She refuses the bribe, but the lawyer notices she has anti-psychotic medication at home and uses this information to paint her as an unreliable witness. Judge Stevens, who is secretly on the cartel s payroll, declares there is insufficient evidence to allow the perpetrators to stand trial and dismisses the case, while the prosecuting lawyers do nothing. Outraged, Riley tries to attack her family s killers, but she is subdued and ordered to be held at a psychiatric ward. En route, she escapes and vanishes.

Five years later, Detectives Moises Beltran and Stan Carmichael arrive at the site of the carnival and find the three shooters hanging from the Ferris wheel, having been killed by Riley. The killings attract the attention of FBI agent Lisa Inman. Inman explains to the detectives that before vanishing, Riley robbed the bank she used to work at, and that she has now returned, having robbed a gun store to steal a wide arsenal of weapons and ammunition.

Riley kills Judge Stevens by blowing up his house, having already killed the defense and prosecution lawyers involved. The police decide to tell the media about Riley, which causes a debate on social media between those who see her as a hero and those who see her as a criminal.

Riley heads to a business that is a front for Diego s money laundering, where she kills most of his men. Diego realizes Riley is responsible for his recent shipments going missing and resolves to kill her. Inman discovers Riley has been living in Skid Row, owing to recent changes to crime patterns in the area. She finds Riley s van, full of the stolen weapons, and learns that the people there see Riley as their guardian angel for keeping them safe.

Riley survives a trap set by Diego, follows his henchmen to Diego s home, and kills his many guards. When Diego s young daughter, who evokes her own murdered child, interrupts her as she confronts Diego, she hesitates and flees, allowing Diego to wound her. Inman calls Carmichael to Skid Row to wait for Riley, but Carmichael, secretly on Diego s payroll, shoots Inman dead and notifies Diego of Riley s likely destination.

Riley returns to Skid Row, which is swarming with Diego s men. She manages to kill several of them before finding Inman s body. Using Inman s phone, Riley contacts the media to reveal her location, alerting both the media and the police to the scene, and confronts Diego, stalling him long enough for the police to arrive. Believing Carmichael betrayed him, Diego shoots him and flees, only to be beaten down by Riley. Beltran and the LAPD surround Riley and Diego; Beltran assures Riley that Diego will be brought to justice this time, but Riley remains unconvinced, as the justice system failed her previously. With no chance to escape and underestimating Riley s resolve, Diego mocks Riley, confident that she can t kill him now and that she will spend more time in prison than him. However, Riley states that they will not be going to prison and shoots Diego in the head; the police fire at Riley, but she manages to escape.

Beltran finds Riley wounded at her family s gravestone and has her brought to a hospital, despite Riley s expressed desire to die. Beltran later visits her, telling her that there are those who agree with what she did, and slips her the key to her handcuffs, allowing Riley to escape again.

Cast

• Jennifer Garner as Riley North
• John Ortiz as Detective Moises Beltran
• John Gallagher Jr. as Detective Stan Carmichael
• Juan Pablo Raba as Diego Garcia
• Annie Ilonzeh as FBI Agent Lisa Inman
• Jeff Hephner as Chris North
• Pell James as Peg
• Cliff Method Man Smith as Narcotics Detective Barker
• Cailey Fleming as Carly North
• Tyson Ritter as Homeless Sam
• Richard Cabral as Salazar
• Johnny Ortiz as Torres
• Eddie Shin as FBI Agent Peter Li
• John Boyd as Marvin
• Michael Mosley as Robert Henderson
• Ian Casselberry as Cortez
• Kyla-Drew Simmons as Maria
• Samantha Edelstein as Ice Cream Vendor
• YaYa Gosselin as Ana (Garcia s Daughter)
• Emma Thoraval as Homeless Girl (Maria)
• Hunter Wright as Homeless Kid
• Tate Birchmore as Boy on Bus

Production

In May 2017 director Pierre Morel was attached to the project, he previously directed the first film in the Taken series starring Liam Neeson. The script, influenced by the Marvel Comics character Frank Castle / Punisher, came from writer Chad St. John, who previously co-wrote the script for London Has Fallen. In August 2017, Jennifer Garner was in talks to join the film as Riley North, a woman who, driven by the deaths of her husband and daughter, killed by a cartel, wages a one-woman war on crime using various weapons. The title of the film, Peppermint , refers both to the flavor of ice-cream the character s daughter was eating upon her death, and the eventual alias taken by her as she embarks on her crusade.

Filming took place on location in California over fifty days.

Stunt coordinator Don Lee previously worked with Garner on Daredevil and Elektra. Garner trained for three months to prepare. Training included dance, cardio and weight training, boxing workouts, artillery sessions, and stunt work with her longtime double, Shauna Duggins.

Release

The film premiered at the Regal Cinemas L.A. Live Stadium 14 in Los Angeles on August 28, 2018. Ahead of the release of the film Garner received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

The film went on general release in the United States on September 7, 2018.

Box office

Peppermint has grossed $35.4 million in the United States and Canada, and $18.4 million in other territories, for a total worldwide gross of $53.8 million, against a production budget of $22.8 million, to $25 million.

In the United States and Canada, Peppermint was released alongside The Nun and God Bless the Broken Road, and was projected to gross $10–13 million from 2,980 theaters in its opening weekend. The film made $4.7 million on its first day, including $800,000 from Thursday night previews. It went on to debut to $13.4 million, finishing second at the box office, behind The Nun.

Critical response

On Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 12% based on 151 reviews, and an average rating of 3.6/10. The website s critical consensus reads, Far from refreshing, Peppermint wastes strong work from Jennifer Garner on a dreary vigilante-revenge story that lacks unique twists or visceral thrills. On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 29 out of 100, based on 26 critics, indicating generally unfavorable reviews . Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of B+ on an A+ to F scale.

Frank Scheck of The Hollywood Reporter called the film Death Wish on steroids , and said it lacks subtlety and anything even remotely resembling credibility, but, like its heroine, it certainly gets the job done . IndieWire s Jude Dry gave the film a C+ . He wrote that Garner deserves to be in better films, and said the film is a rare return to form for Garner, who doles out her vigilante justice with effortless charm. Unfortunately, that s about the only reason to see Peppermint .

Richard Roeper of the Chicago Sun-Times gave the film two out of four stars, writing, In the stylishly directed but gratuitously nasty and cliché-riddled Peppermint, Garner plays essentially two characters cut from the same person. Writing for TheWrap, Todd Gilchrist said that Peppermint ultimately possesses the stale predictability of an unwrapped candy discovered at the bottom of a purse. Andrew Barker of Variety wrote: Garner gives everything that is asked of her, from brute physicality to dewy-eyed tenderness, but this half-witted calamity botches just about everything else. Drably by-the-numbers except for the moments where it goes gobsmackingly off-the-rails, Peppermint misfires from start to finish. Emily Yoshida of New York Magazine wrote: There was a time when a woman being the star of her own bad action franchise could have been considered the apex of progress, but that time is past. Yoshida criticizes the lack of originality in the film and says that casting Garner is not enough to change that.

Accolades

Year	Award	Category	Recipient	Result
2019	EDA Special Mention Awards	Actress Most in Need of a New Agent	Jennifer Garner	Nominated
	Golden Raspberry Awards	Worst Actress	Jennifer Garner	Nominated
	Houston Film Critics Society Awards	Best Worst Film	Peppermint	Nominated
	Young Entertainer Awards	Best Supporting Young Actor – Feature Film	Tate Birchmore	Nominated

Year	2018
ReleaseDate	2018-09-07
RuntimeMins	101
RuntimeStr	1h 41min
Plot	Five years after her husband and daughter are killed in a senseless act of violence, a woman comes back from self-imposed exile to seek revenge against those responsible and the system that let them go free.
Awards	Awards, 4 nominations
Directors	Pierre Morel
Writers	Chad St. John
Stars	Jennifer Garner, John Gallagher Jr., John Ortiz
Produced by	Felice Bee,Adam Fogelson,David Kern,Gary Lucchesi,James McQuaide,Eric Reid,Tom Rosenberg,Jackie Shenoo,Robert Simonds,Renee Tab,Donald Tang,Christopher Tuffin,Zhongjun Wang,Zhonglei Wang,Richard S. Wright
Music by	Simon Franglen
Cinematography by	David Lanzenberg
Film Editing by	Frédéric Thoraval
Casting By	Deanna Brigidi
Production Design by	Ramsey Avery
Art Direction by	Chris DiLeo
Set Decoration by	Lori Mazuer
Costume Design by	Lindsay McKay
Makeup Department	Robin Beauchesne,Deborah La Mia Denaver,Roxane Griffin,Michael Mekash,Bart Mixon,Ann Pala,Rick Stratton,Peter Tothpal,Vincent Van Dyke,Brian Walsh,Robert Wilson,Sabrina Wilson,Alyson Black-Barrie,Bridget O Neill
Production Management	David Kern,Jackie Shenoo,Richard S. Wright
Second Unit Director or Assistant Director	Robert Parker Clemente,Ivan Kraljevic,Milos Milicevic,Jon Recher,Allison Rushton,Keith Woulard
Art Department	Dylan Bocanegra,Natalie Contreras,Xavier Corby,R. Scott Doran,Louie Esparza,Andrew P. Flores,Nicole Kerswill,Lianir Lopez,Chris Maxson,Dakota Moore,Joe Ondrejko,Bernardo Osorio,Paul Pastorelli,Melani Petrushkin,Evan Regester,Josue Rodriguez,Kevin Shaw,Cassidy Shipley,Rafael Somarriba,Gordon Stotz,Vosloo Van Der Merwe,Evan Yarbrough
Sound Department	Brad J. Bakelmun,Jason Charbonneau,Craig Dollinger,Frederic Dubois,Alison Fisher,Michael Kaleta,Adam Kopald,Helen Luttrell,Danny Maurer,Charles Maynes,Michael Minkler,Steven Morrow,Steve Neal,Pace Pictures,Ken Pries,Jeffrey Roy,John Sievert,David Tichauer,Dave Wilson,Randy Wilson,Eric Wojahn,Katy Wood
Special Effects by	Larz Anderson,Kelly Kerby,Ray L. Wilkerson
Visual Effects by	Mathieu Aerni,Hector Aguirre,Matthew Bacon,Magdalena Bisogni,Timothy Bond,Tiffany Nichole Bromley,Alex Cancado,Joe Censoplano,Yinghao Chai,Robert Cohen,James Dornoff,David Entin,Alister Ferguson,David Fonti,Dom Francis,Peng Fu,Manon Ghys,Kristin Goedicke,Zachary Goodson,Meagan Green,Rob Hamilton,Nick Haridopolos,Jongwoo Heo,Catherine Hughes,Alex Jennings,Andrew Kalicki,Xander Kennedy,Dulshan Keragala,Damien Kessler,Alex Khan,Haetsal Kim,Kevin J. Kim,Abhijeet Kumar,Federico La Tona,Gian Ignacio Lombardi,Will Lovett,Wanqi Lyu,James McQuaide,Kyoungsoo Min,Paul Molodowitch,Lily Morgan,Scott Morgan,Sheldon Neill,Gregory Ng,Michael Perdew,Nicolas Pierquin,Raphael A. Pimentel,Eddie Porter,Justin Porter,Karl Rogovin,Nathan Rusch,Marc Schoenbeck,Jared Simeth,Thanapoom Siripopungul,Alejandro Solorzano,Eunice Taylor,Will Towle,Alexander Vegh,Rebecca Wells,Garrett Wycoff,Michael Yates,Benjamin James Ying,Andrew Zink
Stunts	Tiffany Abney,Joey Anaya,Helena Barrett,Max Bojorquez,Damien Bray,Jason Brillantes,Bobby Burns,Christopher M. Campos,Chris Carnel,Gustavo Chavez,Arnold Chon,Bruce Concepcion,Geo Corvera,George Crayton,Jake Dashnaw,Kevin Derr,Alyma Dorsey,Shauna Duggins,Jawed El Berni,Annie Ellis,Edwin Garcia II,Miguel-Andres Garcia,Roberto Garcia,Allan Graf,Chavo Guerrero Jr.,Chad Guerrero,Rosine Ace Hatem,Logan Holladay,Lisa Hoyle,Baxter Humby,Randy Jall,Clint Jones,Dennis Keiffer,Kevin Kent,Horace Knight Jr.,Nito Larioza,Don Lee,Will Leong,Frank Lloyd,Hans Marrero,Anthony Martins,Duffy McManus,Mike Milian,Marco Morales,Damien Moreno,Caryn Mower,Kimberly Shannon Murphy,Robert Nagle,Panuvat Anthony Nanakornpanom,Gabriel Nunez,Richard Nunez,Jimmy Ortega,Stephen Oyoung,Allan Padelford,Eddie Perez,Casey Pieretti,Mario Ponce,Scott Rogers,Sean A. Rosales,Ryan Ryusaki,Brian Simpson,Jesus Trujillo,Jose Vasquez,Mark Aaron Wagner,Eddie L. Watkins,Victor Williams,Gino Woulard,Keith Woulard,Nico Woulard,Hayley Wright,Alvin Zalamea,Sam Bailey
Camera and Electrical Department	Daniel Abbott,Chase A. Abrams,Wesley Alley,Zachary Andrews,Amy Austin,Dana Baker,John Betancourt,Walter Bithell,Matthew Brewer,Shane Buttle,Ian Carre-Burritt,Brian Christie,Andrew Clarke,Eric Cortez,Jordan Cramer,Ralph Del Castillo,Caz Duffy,Andrew Dumas,Brent Egan,Mary Faucette,Jason Faust,Christopher Ferguson,Michael-Ryan Fletchall,James Thomas Flynn,Dustin Gardner,Stephen Irvine,Jason Kay,Jeremiah Kent,Jordan Lapsansky,Andreas Macat,Richard Mall,Joshua Miller,Luke Miller,Dale Myrand,James Notari,Aaron Picot,Josh Raynor,Tony Rivetti Jr.,Jay Sheveck,Ryan Shopay,Peter M. Smith,Don Steinberg,Martin Torner,Christopher A. Zwirner
Casting Department	Laphea Coleman,Johnny Gidcomb,Ashley Marks
Costume and Wardrobe Department	Brian Bachman,Jeannine Bourdaghs,Maria Bradley,Sophia Coronado,Natalia Gattini,Kayti Haugh,Taylor Kannett,Lisa McDaris,Meghan McDonald,Natasha Parkin,Lawrence Quon,Emilea A. Rivera,Gina Scarnati,Annie Spong,Ruth Stockl
Editorial Department	Emily Freund,Billy Hobson,Isabella Locatelli,Yvan Lucas,Aaron Picot,Amy Redfern,Lisa Tutunjian,Pete Conlin,Heather Goodwillie,Tim Weyers
Location Management	Kandice Billingsley,Anna L. Coats,Michael G. Cruz,Jane E. Graves,Ben Thomas Holley,Ralph B. Meyer
Music Department	Steven Baker,Brent Brooks,Angelo Chacon,Eric Craig,Graham Foote,Brad Haehnel,Darren Hall,Dave Lawrence,Brian McNelis,Toby Pitman,Martin Roller,Flynn Hase Spence,Christian Ugenti
Script and Continuity Department	Wilma Garscadden-Gahret
Transportation Department	Brad Beaven,Jonathan Curtin,Mark Dobkousky,David J. Duran,Geno Hart,Darryl Hayes,Jeremy Hysen,Robert J. Morton,Marty Osborne,Marc Porterfield,Bea S. Rembeczky,Paul Sarni,Brian Stackhouse
Additional Crew	Jenn Albaugh,Ava Amundsen,Gabriela Aurora,Daniel Bavell,Amelia Belle,Robert Benun,Jason Buckley,Jennifer Bydwell,Jennifer Cain,Christopher Ciketic,Mario Cortez,Dennis Davidson,Devin DiGonno,Rebecca Eddy,Heidi Falconer,Katalin Fonyó,John Allen Funk,Elliot Gannon,Elana Goldberg,Gerri Valentina Gonzalez,Maya Goodwin,Terri Greening,Maureen Grosser,Deidre Hannah,Danielle Hartnett,Caleb Haydock,Jason Her,Rares Hornet,Michael Horton,John Iannarelli,Dallas Isbell,Lieve Jansen,Kevin Kent,Mark Korshak,Darren P. Leis,Mario Locurcio,Ruby Lynch,Hiromi Marder,Jake Martin,Meara McDonald,Connor McGill,Michael McKay,Katherine Lucy McLure,Steven Oliveri,Hailey Oltman,Arthur Ortiz,Berenice Perez,William Michael Redman,Morten Rowley,Drew Simon,Jason Stein,Claire Thorne,Emily Thorne,Kyle Vonn Elzey,Alma Weaks,Nancy Wetzel,Kate Vorhoff
Thanks	Alexander Yves Brunner,Ruben Igielko-Herrlich,Jérôme Lateur,Amy Lemisch,Nancy Rae Stone
Genres	Action, Thriller
Companies	STX Films, Lakeshore Entertainment, Huayi Brothers Media
Countries	China, USA
Languages	English, Spanish
ContentRating	R
ImDbRating	6.4
ImDbRatingVotes	65120
MetacriticRating	29
Keywords	revenge,loss of husband,female protagonist,hanging body,corruption