PLOT: A man, with his daughter in tow, goes after a pharmaceutical company after his wife dies of cancer.
REVIEW: Sweet Girl is a dramatic action-thriller that has quite a lot going for it from the jump. The key villains – Big Pharma and corrupt politicians – are topical foils that are easy to root against. The relatable protagonists – Ray Cooper (Jason Momoa) and his daughter Rachel (Isabela Merced) – are a family dealing with the recent loss of their wife & mother, who was denied a potentially life-saving drug due to the actions of a pharmaceutical corporation. As the story goes on and the fists start to fly it becomes increasingly apparent that director Brian Andrew Mendoza is trying to see beyond the typical revenge formula and into to something more resonant – and while that reach can often exceed the grasp of Momoa’s large hands – it’s more often admirable how well his film harnesses the rage and sadness at its characters’ cores to get more mileage out of the story than expected.
We initially meet Cooper outrunning the FBI atop a stadium in Pittsburg, but this fast-paced intro quickly makes way for a more dramatic setting when we’re sent back three years to when his wife Amanda’s (Adria Arjona) cancer returns. Her chances of survival become dire when Ray is informed that the release of a drug that could save her has been blocked by a larger pharma corp. Despite calling into a news program to threaten the life of the CEO of the corporation, Simon Keely (Justin Bartha), Ray and Rachel are left to grieve and suffer the debt of hospital bills when Amanda passes.
Mendoza has worked with Momoa before as producer on one of the actor’s previous gritty action films – Braven – and while that movie gently tapped into the dramatic chops Momoa can work into a more grounded leading figure, here he’s able to push the star further. Momoa is a dominating personality, so when his character breaks down, it’s in large swings that lay his full heartache on his sleeves. The script from Philip Eisner, Gregg Hurwitz, and Will Staples wrote Ray as a man clearly possesses a lot of rage – but mostly he’s just in pain – and in these early moments that’s what Mendoza hones in on. In that respect, it’s even easy to feel Ray’s anger, despite the lengths it pushes him to. Dressed in a Patagonia vest like he’s going to his family cabin, Keely condescendingly talks into the news camera and to Ray directly, trying to justify Ray’s financial burdens as simply him “buying more time” with a loved one.
As the plot thickens and it comes to light that there’s more conspiracy behind the corporate ethics violations, Mendoza carries over a vulnerability to Momoa’s Ray when shit starts hitting the fan. The first action sequence on a train between Ray and hired gun Amo (Manuel Garcia-Rulfo) establishes the rest to come, and is purposefully sloppy and chaotic, with Momoa less a superhero than a big man who – while he can throw and take a punch – is still a man. He’s tossed around and kicked through a window, an approach that goes a long way in maintaining a grounded atmosphere that favors tension over style. As more action scenes follow, Ray’s expression usually changes to extreme guilt when all is said and done. Almost like he’s blacked out when he’s throwing down against a few men, when the dust settles, he doesn’t like what’s in front of him.
But even as Ray gets more involved in exposing the rich cats who looked to profits before medical care, Mendoza opts into more of the character beats than escalating the action. Ray is angry and wants justice, but the more violence he commits, the more he loses himself to his rage. Merced’s Rachel – who like her dad practices mixed martial arts and can throw down hard – tries to be the guiding light that, while also wanting to see people like Keely pay the price, doesn’t think all this violence is the way to do it. As Ray’s actions sink them deeper into trouble, you can feel the rift between them grow – as it all well should.
I say you can “feel” the rift growing because, in terms of actual conflicts and dialogue exchanges, there’s not much outward conflict between the two. Sure, there are moments when Rachel chastizes Ray, or Ray tries to get Rachel to stay back while he takes care of things. But as far as actual dialogue goes, there’s a great little actual being said between the two. And perhaps that’s the point; that as rage takes over the rift only grows larger. And yet, that still robs much of the movie of having as strong an emotional core as it could, with so much favoring the understandably bleak tone without much being used to explore what effects the actions are having on either Ray or Rachel. Tonally, everything feels right, but for character development, there’s a lot left behind. The lack of resonance feels more noticeable whenever the story cuts back to the FBI not doing the best job hunting Ray and Rachel down, and while Lex Scott Davis’ Detective Meeker is a calming soundboard for Rachel, that side of the story doesn’t add much to the key aspects.
***Entering Minor Spoiler Zone***
In a twist that trumps one from Shyamalan this year, the perspective changes, and what could’ve been a strong father-daughter story about trying to reconcile varying forms of grief becomes one about inherited trauma and rage. While that’s still a worthwhile angle worth exploration – and solidifies Sweet Girl as an action movie admirably punching above its weight class – it’s a twist that simply cannot operate without making the viewer look back on everything that came before and try to make sense of it all, which can easily take you out of the final act. I can’t for certain say if the movie would’ve been stronger had it stuck to a more streamlined approach, or if audiences will buy into everything from this moment on out. But – even though it still doesn’t quite fix how there’s a lack of proper inter-character dialogue and conflict – as the credits rolled I found myself admiring the big swing more than being confused by it. It retains the vision for a revenge-thriller that’s at least trying to do more than progress from fight to fight, continues to explore the themes of grief, rage and what that can do to a person, and gives room to prove that Merced is an action superstar in the making – especially when given a shot against Garcia-Rulfo’s cold-yet-mannered assassin.
**End of Minor Spoiler Zone**
On an execution front, there’s a lot to admire about Sweet Girl’s no-frills approach, and it solidifies Mendoza as a director to watch. He clearly isn’t satisfied with containing his movies into one box, has an eye for visuals (watch for a scene with Amo on a bridge as snow falls), and can get a lot out of his cast. Momoa delivers some of his most subtly effective work, while Merced gets an even wider range to nail, from her innocent beginnings to eventually being pushed over the edge herself. Most of what works is on the surface, with a clear, focused rage driving the story, even when what lies underneath that rage isn’t as well articulated. But still, there’s no denying all the major players behind and in front of the camera wanted to do something a bit different, and that’s nothing to be mad about.