With Trigger Warning, Netflix will never, ever, ever beat the allegations that they are the modern-day iteration of The Cannon Group, filling their algorithm with mindless “content” produced through B-grade screenplays starring A-listers who can get a quick buck out of movies that most people will completely forget by the time it’s over. The only difference between the Ted Sarandos and Greg Peters-run company is that it has none of the schlock and overstimulation that made films under Menahem Golan and Yoram Globus’ belt so damn memorable and fun to watch.
If you didn’t believe this statement to be true, scenes from Lance Hool’s Missing in Action 2: The Beginning are played during a scene in which Parker (Jessica Alba) remembers her late father (Alejandro De Hoyos) and gets replayed once the film’s main villains discover the print in his cave, to which they watch and admire the no-holds-barred talents of Chuck Norris as an action star (but not so much as a legitimate actor).
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Is this also why the movie opens with Jessica Alba pursuing (stereotypically) Arab terrorists and killing them in the same senseless, cartoonish way Menahem Golan framed them while helming The Delta Force? All that was left was Alan Silvestri’s music, and you could swear Golan rose from the grave and directed this sequence.
Yet, the ‘cold open’ has nothing to do with the film’s meat other than posit Parker as a special forces commando with a ‘morally grey area,’ who receives a call from Sherriff Jesse Swann (Mark Webber) that her father passed away during a mining accident in her hometown.
Of course, something’s amiss in typical Cannon Group fashion, and the ‘accident’ is not at all what it seems to be. Worse yet, the Sherriff may be in on it with his brother (Jake Weary) and father (Anthony Michael Hall), a prominent Conservative politician running for re-election.
Now, Parker will only find the truth if she acts as her town’s judge, jury, and executioner. Part The Delta Force. Part Death Wish 3. Inspired by the work of Golan-Globus, without the energy and camp that made these repulsive films guilty pleasures.
Jessica Alba Returns to Acting with Middling Results in Trigger Warning
It’s also interesting that Trigger Warning is the vehicle that brought Jessica Alba back to the acting world after many years of dormancy (her last big role was in 2016’s Mechanic: Resurrection). This feels exactly like the type of movie Charles Bronson would do in the 1980s with Michael Winner or J. Lee Thompson (via Cannon) to resurrect his dwindling career. Simple-minded action movies that kick major ass on screen but with a lead performance that gives absolutely no mind to the story at play.
But what story is there? Parker’s relationship with her father is incredibly paper-thin if only for the brief flashbacks we get with a younger version of the character bonding with him in the cave. We learn very little about their relationship or Parker’s connection to his bar, which was his entire life’s work. It also doesn’t help that the mystery surrounding his death is quickly removed when Parker suspects the Swanns are responsible for the ‘accident,’ which they are rapidly revealed to be the perpetrators.
That’s fine and all, but Trigger Warning goes virtually nowhere with the basic but always thrilling idea of a corrupt politician (and police officer) controlling the city as they work in the shadows with ‘Ghost’ (Kaiwi Lyman), an arms dealer in the domestic terrorist list (I say this because the movie takes time to highlight this element as a massive plot point that this dude is menacing and shouldn’t be taken lightly) who has the development of parchment paper. He shows up out of nowhere, has nothing to do, and gets quickly taken care of by Parker in a badly choreographed and lit fight sequence.
Trigger Warning Has Competent Action Scenes, But…
It’s weird because some of its action scenes, especially in the picture’s former half, are well choreographed and shot, exactly the type of stuff you’d see in a Joseph Zito, Lance Hool, or Michael Winner film. But they don’t last very long, and, in turn, we get drawn-out dialogue scenes that add very little to the character work (supposedly) being done and the story at hand.
In fact, there’s no story in Trigger Warning. The motivations of its antagonists are incredibly unclear, and we seldom spend any time with them, whilst Parker’s sole goal is to ‘enact justice’ on the people who killed her father. The conceit of Trigger Warning is that it could’ve been great if Alba gave more of a damn than in the finished product (in most of the action scenes, it’s clearly her stunt double), and there would be legitimate motivations for her to become the aforementioned judge, jury, and executioner.
Each Death Wish movie had a catalyst for Paul Kersey to revert to vigilanteism in every installment, but the motivations for Parker to do the same thing (minus investigating her father’s death) are lackadaisical at best.
Though it clearly doesn’t help for Alba that John Brancato, Josh Holson, and Halley Gross’ script contains lines with the equivalent of “How many children have you killed with this SHIIIIIIIIIIT?” as spoken by Charles Bronson in Death Wish 4: The Crackdown. Not even the greatest actor in the world could salvage such an inert screenplay.
But at least those movies were fun and had energy in front and behind the camera. We can appreciate the overt maximalism on display, even if the contents of the films themselves are incredibly politically incorrect by all standards and would never get made today. The Netflix version of the Golan-Globus model has nothing to show for it other than to vy for the same blockbuster attention through their money-laundering schemes as the biggest Hollywood studios without ever releasing any of their films in cinemas while attempting to snag prestige with potential Best Picture contenders during Awards season.
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Apple beat them to it because they support cinemas on a large scale and create far more compelling films than Sarandos et al. ever will. And despite a competent director in Mouly Surya attached to Trigger Warning, no single person or talent could’ve ever saved this project from being anything but another cog in the ever-growing Netflix algorithm to boost the number of films released yearly. Unlike The Cannon Group, Netflix is certainly not dynamite. Trigger Warning is streaming now on Netflix.
1.5/5
About Trigger Warning
Release Date:Â June 21, 2024
Director:Â Mouly Surya
Screenplay:Â John Brancato, Josh Olson, Halley Gross
Music:Â Enis Rotthof
Producers:Â Basil Iwanyk, Erica Lee, Esther Hornstein
Production:Â Thunder Road Films, Lady Spitfire
Distribution:Â Netflix
Cast:Â Jessica Alba, Anthony Michael Hall, Mark Webber, Jake Weary, Tone Bell, Alejandro De Hoyos, and Gabriel Basso
Synopsis:Â Special Forces commando Parker (Jessica Alba) is on active duty overseas when she gets called back to her hometown with the tragic news that her father has suddenly died. Now the owner of the family bar, Parker reconnects with her former boyfriend-turned-sheriff Jesse (Mark Webber), his hot-tempered brother Elvis (Jake Weary), and their powerful father Senator Swann (Anthony Michael Hall), as she looks to understand what happened to her dad.
Parker’s search for answers quickly goes south and she soon finds herself at odds with a violent gang running rampant in her hometown. Unsure of who she can truly trust, Parker draws on her commando training and proves herself a force to be reckoned with as she hunts down the truth and attempts to right what has gone wrong in Swann County, with the help of her covert ops partner and hacker Spider (Tone Bell) and connected local dealer Mike (Gabriel Basso).
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