The men are laughing stock in this film, the further it progresses, the larger the hordes in which they swarm, the faster they are killed like shooting gallery figures. Sometimes, to make an impression, they compete in a team of three, and when they are so uptight with their clubs, you just can’t avoid thinking of the “Three Stooges”, the worst booby group in early Hollywood, when you see them. masterful in the art of self-dissection. A group of three, for example, lies in wait for Sam in the neon-blue-red of a bowling alley, which then becomes a poor showdown like in the spaghetti westerns. That too had a lot to do with anarchic American slapstick. Gutterball is the name of the railway, clumsy and suggestive.
Sam’s real name is Samantha, she is played by Karen Gillan, who is known from the “Avengers”, “Guardians-of-the-Galaxy” and “Jumanji” films. She is a young professional killer, effective and reliable, mostly she is employed by an organization called the “company” and probably has the whole world under control – we also know something like that from the early days of cinema, from the series. Sam’s mother Scarlet, played by ena Headey, is in the same business.
She was in Game of Thrones, Queen Gorgon in 300, and Sarah Connor on the Terminator television series. In the diner, mother and daughter initially sit at the table and drink with two straws from the same milkshake cup – “with an extra scoop for my favorite customer”. If you want to take a seat here, you have to hand in your weapons beforehand, the girls who serve here are keen to ensure that the shop stays clean. After a tricky coup, the mother had to go into hiding and was gone for years. In Nathan, the man who arranges the orders for the “company”, played by Paul Giamatti, residual paternal feelings accumulate.
They also fight against masculine arrogance and disdain
The women are the professionals, they make this film. “Well I got us on a highway and I got us in a car. Got us going faster than we’ve ever gone before …” on the highway they step on the gas. Her cynicism, which is due to her profession and the genre, always has a double edge, as a reaction to the masculine arrogance and disdain around her. One day moral moments will make the professional gears of Sam stutter. The job gets a little complicated.
A man stole a large sum from the “company”, but he did so because his daughter had been kidnapped and there was no other way to raise the ransom. Sam shoots him, but feels responsible for the child, Emily, after all. The money burns, Sam is released to be shot. Emily helps her escape, she sees herself as her intern. Unfortunately, Sam also killed the only son of the boss of the “company”. “And I know it ain’t gonna last” … that can’t go well.
Navot Papushado became known in Israel through the film “Big Bad Wolves”, 2013, about a father who takes revenge on the murderer of his daughter, a study of male potency and the cruelty into which it ends. “Gunpowder Milkshake” is staged very simply, many medium long shots and parallel drives, interspersed with splashing blood and special effects, but also with deep emotional moments.
The center is, in opposition to the ominous headquarters of the “company”, the dim library, three librarians work here – they are, says Papushado, like the sheriffs of the city in a western. A great team, loyal and competent, smart and well-read: Carla Gugino, Angela Bassett, Michelle Yeoh. In the books of her library, the spirit and the hand weapons are brought together. Women dominate the reading material, Jane Austen, Charlotte Brontë, Virginia Woolf, and Agatha Christie.
In the end there is a masculine, a paternal loneliness. I’ve always been a feminist, says the boss of the “company” who lost his son through Sam and wants to kill them in the most cruel way for it. I had four daughters, I loved them but never understood them, they always giggled in dark corners. It was different with the son … “With his death,” he says to Sam at the end of the diner, “you made me a stranger in my own house again.”
Gunpowder Milkshake, USA 2021 – Director: Navot Papushado. Book: Papushado, Ehud Lavski. Camera: Michael Seresin. Editor: Nicolas De Toth. Music: Frank Ilfman. With: Karen Gillan, Lena Headey, Chloe Coleman, Paul Giamatti, Carla Gugino, Angela Bassett, Michelle Yeoh, Ralph Ineson. Studiocanal, 114 minutes. Film release: December 2nd, 2021.