"Gunpowder Milkshake" an eclectically cast shoot-'em-up with style and cheekiness

Gunpowder Milkshake (2021)

Even before its official release, “Gunpowder Milkshake” already has a sequel in development, which should tell you something. Directed by Navot Papushado (2014’s darkly offbeat “Big Bad Wolves”), this is an originally conceived, eclectically cast female-driven crime shoot-‘em-up where everyone seems to be having an absolute blast. The cherry on top? It’s cheeky and stylish, not based on an established property (like a graphic novel it very much feels like), and the audience is invited to be in on the fun, too.

While initially seeming miscast to be playing an assassin, Karen Gillan goes all in as Sam, a hired killer who has followed her hot-tempered mother’s footsteps working for male-run crime agency The Firm. It’s been 15 years since Sam has last seen or been in contact with her mother, Scarlet (Lena Headey), an assassin who was forced to abandon her daughter and go off the grid to keep her safe. When Sam does a job given to her by handler Nathan (Paul Giamatti), it results in shooting the wrong guy and the kidnapping of said wrong guy's 8 ¾-year-old girl named Emily (Chloe Coleman). Sam feels fully responsible—and suddenly moralistic—so she goes rogue, vowing to rescue Emily and keep her alive. Meanwhile, one of The Firm’s high-ranking members (Ralph Ineson) is not too happy when Sam has killed his one and only son in a family of girls, putting out a hit on Sam’s head. It’s a perfect time, then, for Scarlet to come back into Sam’s life, as does Scarlet’s former sisterhood, The Librarians, who use a historical library as a front for an armory.

Writer-director Navot Papushado and co-writer Ehud Lavski have created a stylized criminal underworld, colorful and heightened to the point of being almost dreamlike. A retro ‘50s diner (hence the “milkshake” in the title), where assassins “lighten their load” before sitting down, could be a stand-in as a neutral base for The Continental in the “John Wick” movies, and they carry around books not because they like to read but because the books hold weapons. The world-building of it all isn’t fully fleshed out as it was in those films or even "Hotel Artemis," but the desire to spend more time in this world is certainly there. Every character is pretty businesslike with a cheeky streak, but it comes down to the sterling cast selling the violent things they do and the snappy things they say. 

There is an estranged mother-daughter story at the core of “Gunpowder Milkshake,” and Karen Gillan and Lena Headey do get to efficiently sell it as best they can as Sam and Scarlet. Of course, Sam’s redemptive arc from cold-blooded killer to cold-blooded killer with a conscience takes center stage once Emily comes into her life. Also, Chloe Coleman (2020’s “My Spy”) is an adorable natural even when Emily keeps reminding Sam of her exact age, and she actually gets to help Sam drive without becoming merely a prop to drag around. Angela Bassett, Carla Gugino, and Michelle Yeoh should get more to play as Sam’s “aunties,” respectively the no-nonsense Anna May, the sweetly reserved Mathilde, and the quiet but deadly Florence. But each of them is still fun to watch through their vibrant presence alone, making their individual moments count and their dynamic together infectious. Finally, Paul Giamatti is sort of wasted as Nathan, but this is about the women anyway.

The action set-pieces are gleefully, inventively violent, and cleanly staged. Freshly utilized locations range from a neon-lit bowling alley to a mall parking garage to a dental clinic (run by Michael Smiley), where Sam has no use of her arms but improvises by having Emily tape a scalpel and a gun to each hand. And those are just the set-pieces involving Sam taking on three stooges sent by Nathan and some Universal Monster-masked criminals. The two showdowns, one at the library and another at the diner, are somehow both exciting; the first shows each woman’s fighting style that works for them, and the second, set to The Animals’ “It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue,” is a tableau of slow-motion gunfire that nearly keeps Michelle Yeoh’s Florence the central focus. Unlike the majority of Hollywood action movies out there, a single punch does not get numbingly edited into ten different cuts. A frothier “John Wick” and other like-minded assassin action films, “Gunpowder Milkshake” has its own lively firecracker of a personality. It still shouldn't seem like a novelty to see badass women play hitwomen, but here we are. As the first installment, it makes you want even more from this bullet-riddled kitschy-noir world and these characters, particularly The Librarians. Drink this milkshake!

Grade: B

Netflix is releasing “Gunpowder Milkshake” (114 min.) to stream on July 14, 2021.