Remember those rumours a few years back that they were planning to do a female version of The Expendables with an ensemble of women including Sigourney Weaver and Linda Hamilton? Well, Navot Papushado's Gunpowder Milkshake is certainly an action film to whet the appetite for such an event with an ensemble of women not afraid to get their hands dirty or bring out the big guns all in the name of kicking ass. It's quite simply one of the best times I've had in a cinema all year.
In her turbulent life as a professional assassin, Scarlet (Lena Headey) was cruelly forced to abandon her daughter Sam (Karen Gillan) and go on the run. Years later, despite the estrangement, Sam has also grown up into a cold blooded hitwoman. After a high-stake mission spins out of control, putting innocent 8-year-old Emily (Chloe Coleman), in the middle of the gang war she has unleashed, Sam has no choice but to go rogue. This ultimately leads her back to her mother and her former hitwomen sidekicks, who all join forces in an avenging war against those who took everything from them.
Made with such verve and confidence from director Navot Papushado, Gunpowder Milkshake is a thrilling ride that delivers glorious amounts of action in a symphony of violence that possesses a brilliantly dark sense of humour at its core. This is a real crowd-pleaser of an action film, smartly written by Papushado and Ehud Lavski with a bit of mystery thrown in for good measure.
I could speak about the action sequences of Gunpowder Milkshake for some time because they're simply that good. There's great fight choreography on show and set amidst the backdrop of Michael Seresin's cinematography this really is a fantastic feast for your eyes. Throw in Frank Ilfman's electrifying score and you have a film I had the absolute pleasure of revelling in on a 35mm presentation at the Prince Charles Cinema.
When the action and violence starts to flow, Gunpowder Milkshake has a formidable lead performance at hand to drive the film forward in such fantastic fashion, Karen Gillan proving herself an action queen with a badass turn as a highly skilled killer trying to right a major wrong in her line of work. She's joined by an ensemble of women (Lena Headey, Angela Bassett, Carla Gugino, Michelle Yeoh and Chloe Coleman holding her own amidst such veterans) who make this one hell of an entertaining dose of action. In a film full of so many fierce women, Paul Giamatti squirms his way through the film as Sam's handler while a trio of bumbling assassins sent after Sam, played by Ivan Kaye, David Burnell IV and Jack Bandeira, provide a number of solid laughs.
Gunpowder Milkshake really does work as a shot of pure adrenalin that I couldn't recommend seeing on a big screen more if I tried. Navot Papushado is most definitely a director I'm keen to see more from in the future and with how much rubbish gets sequels greenlit these days, it wouldn't be too much to ask for more of this, would it?
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