Jessica Alba brings out her Rambo side in “Trigger Warning,” where she plays an active U.S. military officer who gets called home only to find a mess that needs to be dealt with. Moily Surya marks her debut with “Trigger Warning” as a well made film although it has a well written plot, and yes, the formula where dominance and oppression meet violence is present throughout the runtime which pushes it away from being termed ‘elevated genre’ that showcases her talents. However, it’s fun, fast paced action drama, and the film should find an audience on Netflix when it releases on June 21.
Having started with two interestingly conceived but rather ambiguous initial features, Surya took a bold step and made the 2018’s “Marline the Murderer in Four Acts” be a game changer. The combination of a “feminist outlaw Western” genre was remarkable as it planted itself in the core of revenge thriller, black comedy, and character focused sociopolitical commentary. Her more commercially oriented American debut is yet another revenge story but this time surrounding a fierce, competent woman figure. But this is also the first film on which Surya has not contributed to the script. The one that’s available to her (attributed to “John Branco & Josh Olson and Haley Gross”) has a plausible, though rather predictable abundance of dramatic obstacles, which level the impact of the final product.
We first see Special Operation Forces’ sniper Parker Calvo (Alba) in Syria, where she and her driver are in middle of the desert, trying to breathe through the gunfire of the enemies bearing down on them. The objectives of the mission are left vague, but regardless, she ends up being the only survivor from the unit. To add salt to injury, she receives bad news her father passed away somewhere in the United States. The one who brings this bad news is ex novia Jessie (Mark Webber), who is a big town sheriff in their common hometown called Creation in N.M. After moving back there, however, this Old Testament style place name is hardly appropriate for the latest events which include a spree of violent robbery.
She strongly believes such atrocities must have been carried out by Elvis who is Jesse’s brother and is extremely rude (Jake Weary). if not for the political interventions of their father, Senator Ezekiel Swann (Anthony Michael Hall), Elvis would be in jail by now.
Quickly, Parker starts to believe that her father (flashback scene scoring Alejandro De Hoyas) did not die in the accident or the alleged suicide which Jesse claims. She wonders whether her worst suspicions about why Elvis and his thugs are selling illegal military arms disguised as having dumped them into their father’s abandoned mine shafts, his “favorite places,” and where he recently perished in suspicious circumstances.
As our protagonist’s investigative activities reveal more and more compromising evidence regarding Oliver Bennett, the number of her reliable partners is small, such as a friendly weed fan Mikey (Gabriel Basso ) and Special Forces officer Spider (Tone Bell) with a fast tongue. Those two male add ones are good additions to a competent support cast here but really no one has the scope of the character writing to make the actions of the role memorable even Hall who is a far cry from Sixteen Candles is not fortunate in this regard.
The star pursues action in regular intervals, even if the battles are not entirely persuasive, the same goes for the explosions and some other effects in here, and it is the same with Parker’s never ending bad luck of being featured at the wrong places or times, discovering clues, having filthy conversations etc. The script pays attention to contemporary issues too such as illegal activities on the “dark web”, immigration problems but rather superficially Mariyah: “Let’s be neutral for a change.” The most it comes to put its neck out is when reactionary capitalism worded by an expensive cat gets asked, “Why are politicians such liars?” Answer, this is the ideal cross cultural insult which transcends party lines.
Nevertheless, “Trigger Warning” is well packaged and action packed so the viewers will not switch channels. Surya does not give any great impressions in the art of creating attention to a climax or designing shocking violent scenes. Even so, the narrative intends to sweep us along on the turn, assisted by cinematographer Zoe White and production designer Natasha Gerasimov’s visual refinement respectively. Unsuccessful was also the original score of Ennis Rotroff which seems to fit perfectly into an overused corner of action movie soundtracks.
For more movies like Trigger Warning visit 123Movies.