If this all sounds familiar, it’s because we’ve seen it countless times before. Not only that, we’ve seen similar, better–executed stories from Peppermint’s own director and star—Pierre Morel with Taken and Jennifer Garner in TV spy drama Alias, which began with Garner’s character losing her fiancé to an assassination in the show’s pilot and becoming a double agent in order to bring those responsible to justice. Both Taken and Alias are vastly superior to Peppermint. Visually, Peppermint is competent. The R-rated action is dynamic, bolstered by a wonderful physical and emotional performance from Garner, who we’ve established has done this many times before. Particular highlights include a confetti-filled piñata store shootout and a sequence that sees Riley getting cover by ghost riding. (Because Riley has zero friends or allies—mercenary or otherwise. It makes for a sad movie—like, this movie made me sad.) The movie overuses a choppy editing technique that’s straight out of Memento or Veronica Mars Season 1, as well as unnecessary visual reminders that, yes, Riley once had a young daughter who was slain right in front of her eyes. While Peppermint might come out slightly ahead of other revenge thrillers when it comes to gender politics, it’s blatantly racist. You don’t go into a revenge thriller for its nuanced depiction of violent crime, but Peppermint is particularly simplistic in its depiction of violence—specifically, who does it and why. There is white Girl Scout mom Riley, who kills in pursuit of justice that corrupt institutions like the court and police were unable to give her and her family. And then there are all of the Latino gang characters in the film, who seemingly perpetrate crime of all varieties because they are just hateful, greedy, violent people. There is no context for their villainy, which doesn’t differentiate between adults and children, between guilty and innocent. The only explanation this film seems to need is that they are Latino. Have I mentioned this film features a shootout at a piñata store? This movie wants to be Batman Begins, but, instead, it is a bad episode of 24: racist, choppy, and violent for violent’s sake. Jennifer Garner, and her performance, deserve better. Peppermint makes for a respectable flipping-through-the-channels movie, but save your hard-earned money for a different movie ticket.