A movie like Trigger Warning is the type of B-movie schlock you’d run across in a video rental place 20 years ago and wonder why someone like Jessica Alba would do it. And then you realize you hadn’t seen Jessica Alba in anything for a while. This is her first movie in five years since Killer Anonymous, one of those movies that boost Alba and Gary Oldman on the cover, but you know they’re barely in it and did the movie for a big quick payday.
Despite its title, this isn’t a movie about someone suffering from post-traumatic stress even though Alba plays a Special Forces commando who served overseas and is quick to bust some InCel macho men in the face. Alba does a lot of punching and kicking of dudebros in this movie, it’s almost payback for her embarrassing role in The Killer Inside Me where she is constantly punched in the face by Casey Affleck’s corrupt cop.
Parker Colvo (Alba) is overseas when she receives word her father, Harry (Alejando De Hoyos), died during a collapse in a nearby cave from his bar/restaurant in a small New Mexico town. And she soon discovers it wasn’t an accident nor intentional as the sheriff Jake Swann (Mark Webber) suspects because he claims they found a suicide note.
Jake is the son of Ezekiel Swann (Anthony Michael Hall in a hilarious MAGA role) is a good ole boy appealing to other MAGA as he wants to run for Senator. Ezekiel has another son, Elvis (Jake Weary), who has a Joe Dirt-style rat tail mullet and is actually an black market arms dealer.
It’s a silly plot that makes no sense especially when you consider how they’re getting the weapons to sell. However, I wouldn’t doubt some politician like Ezekiel would be in cahoots with a domestic terrorist who wants to purchase illegal military-style weaponry if he can get a lot of money to fund his campaign.
Trigger Warning was released two months before Rebel Ridge which has a similar story of an outsider fighting a corrupt law enforcement agency in a BFE community. But Trigger Warning doesn’t take itself too seriously as Rebel Ridge did nor is it as redundant with a longer plot that could’ve been shaved by about half an hour.
This movie is only about an hour and 45 minutes, which is still a little too long given that anyone with half a brain can guess all that’s going on fairly early. But it is nice to see Alba kick some ass unlike being reduced to the AnnaSophia Robb character in Rebel Ridge who basically becomes a damsel in distress.
It’s not a good movie but it’s not a really bad movie. It’s cheesy and doesn’t shy away but prides itself. You pretty much know what you’re getting and it delivers with the cheesiness of a story that’s been told time and time again from Walking Tall to First Blood.
What do you think? Please comment.
Zane Says 