Trigger Warning

Everyone involved in this action thriller is clearly giving it their all, but the action lacks much impact, and the central mystery is not all that thrilling.

Premise:  Returning to her hometown after her father dies in an accident, Special Forces soldier Parker (Jessica Alba) begins to suspect there was more to his death than first believed.

Review:

There’s no question that films like John Wick have raised the bar when it comes to what audiences expect from today’s action films.  Some films, like this year’s Monkey Man, have sought to emulate the inventiveness of the John Wick films but on a smaller budget, while other films – like Nobody, Bullet Train and even Violent Night – have adopted a darkly humorous approach to the stylised violence.

Unfortunately, Trigger Warning has little of the inventiveness or creativity that made any of the above films so enjoyable.  It does have a couple of flashes of promise – the opening sequence featuring Parker on a mission in Syria, and a later confrontation in a hardware store, both showed potential – but most of the action is fairly pedestrian and unimaginative.  Coming out just a couple of months after the Road House reboot – which brought tonnes of visual flourishes, invention and style to its fight sequences – Trigger Warning feels positively uninspired in its direction and its action choreography in comparison.

“…Jessica Alba really deserves better than this…”

That said, Jessica Alba does that best she can with the material she’s given, and she clearly committed to the action sequences.  I’ve long been a fan of hers (since she starred in James Cameron’s Dark Angel TV series), but she really deserves better than this both in terms of the quality of the script and of the direction/fight choreography.

Plot wise, the central mystery plays out pretty much as you’d expect (although if I’m being generous, you could say it did include one expected development), and perhaps most disappointingly, the villains never feel that much of a threat (especially as we’re shown how lethal Parker is in the opening sequence in Syria).  They say a hero is only as good as his villain – the John Wick series has had plenty of memorable antagonists, The Equalizer had Marton Csokas’ Teddy, and even the Road House reboot had Conor McGregor’s Knox – but none of the villains in Trigger Warning make any real impact.

“…nothing you haven’t seen before…”

Overall, Trigger Warning isn’t terrible per se, it’s just nothing you haven’t seen a hundred times before.  Your life won’t be any poorer if you never see it, but equally, it’s a relatively inoffensive 1 hour 45 minutes.  It’s just that, when all is said and done, if does feel like a sad reminder that Jessica Alba could do so much more if given better projects to work on.