Trigger Warning
Jessica Alba's action vehicle triggers little excitement.
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For a while there it seemed like every actor was getting their own “Taken” or their own “John Wick.” For “Trigger Warning” (now streaming on Netflix) the streamer went further back and gave Jessica Alba her own “Billy Jack” or “Walking Tall.”
Alba stars as Parker, a Special Forces commando who’s called away from Middle Eastern combat and back home the Southwestern United States by Jesse (Mark Webber), her sheriff of a high school sweetheart. Turns out Parker’s Dad Harry (Alejandro De Hoyos) died in a mine collapse. Some suspect suicide. Others assume an accident. These answers don’t pass muster with Parker who begins investigating her Dad’s demise. Aiding Parker in her boots on the ground inquiry is stoner family friend Mike (Gabriel Basso of Netflix’s “The Night Agent”). Aiding from afar is Parker’s hacker brother in arms Spider (Tone Bell). Clues keep pointing to Jesse’s dipshit brother Elvis (Jake Weary) and their Trumpublican father Senator Ezekiel Swann (Anthony Michael Hall). It’s now up to Parker to take out the trash and avenge her Dad’s death.
If this all sounds familiar that’s because it is. You’ve seen and heard all of this before and it does precious little to reinvent the wheel. It’s directed by Indonesian filmmaker Mouly Surya, who certainly has a strong reputation resulting from her previous picture “Marlina the Murderer in Four Acts” (this was Indonesia’s official selection for Best Foreign Film at the 2019 Academy Awards, but failed to secure a nod). Surya and her cinematographer Zoë White (she previously DP’d Michael Giacchino’s Disney+ Marvel special “Werewolf by Night”) do what they can to elevate the material and make it cool-looking … that is, when their efforts aren’t being bogged down by numerous instances of mind-bogglingly bad CGI. The script by John Brancato (a “Terminator” veteran having had a hand in penning “Rise of the Machines” and “Salvation,” Josh Olson (a co-writer on David Cronenberg’s “A History of Violence”) and Halley Wegryn Gross (she’s written for television shows such as “Banshee,” “Westworld” and “Too Old to Die Young”) is fairly hokey doing these ladies few favors.
Alba isn’t the performer that some of her contemporary action sisters are (I’m thinking specifically of Charlize Theron), but she’s an appealing and attractive lead, a capable actress and is convincing enough when engaging in onscreen combat. She also has a pretty solid supporting cast backing her up. I just wish there was more and better action (Parker foils a hardware store robbery about a quarter of the way into the movie by fighting a chainsaw-wielding thief and that’s admittedly pretty rad and the film’s visceral highlight) and that the supporting players had more interesting notes to play … they’re all kind of caricatures.
“Trigger Warning” would’ve played better with the 86-minute runtime advertised on Letterboxd and Rotten Tomatoes as opposed to 106-minute one that exists in reality. Leaner and meaner could’ve made this one a wiener. If you’re gonna watch just one piece of Netflix-branded entertainment called “Trigger Warning” I’d recommend rapper Killer Mike’s series over watching Alba play soldier.