Of course, when Quentin Tarantino’s quote, “Best film of the year!” was used as part of the poster for 2013’s Big Bad Wolves, it was already clear that Israeli filmmaker Navot Papushado was ready to invite comparisons to the Pulp Fiction auteur’s own cinematic style. After all, if a narcissist like Quentin saw something in it, it must be because it possessed similar tastes to his own. With Papushado’s latest movie—and first “Hollywood” foray—Gunpowder Milkshake, he seems determined to continue inviting those comparisons. Yet he’s not content to leave it at one violence-prone male auteur: there’s also more than a hint of Nicolas Winding Refn’s aesthetic bent throughout, namely in the vibrant color saturations exhibited by neon tones in a nighttime context.
One of those “nighttime contexts” is immediately evident during the title sequence, during which a diner-inspired neon sign sets the tone for one of the key locations of the film. While the diner has no specific name, it is perhaps that namelessness that adds to the deliberately generic feel of time and place within the universe of Gunpowder Milkshake. Just as it is the work of Winding Refn, particularly in films like Drive, Only God Forgives and The Neon Demon.
Both Tarantino and Winding Refn favor antiheros in lead roles, but it is the former who often prefers a “masculinized” antiheroine. So it would seem the same for Papushado in Gunpowder Milkshake, with the main character, Sam (Karen Gillan, who looks oddly like Hacks’ Hannah Einbinder), being the chip-on-her-shoulder assassin of the tale. But as most know, assassins aren’t born, they’re created. And the one who created Sam, incidentally, is her own mother, Scarlet (Lena Headey). As the primary leader of a cabal of female killers who work for The Firm for no other ostensible reason than simply “it’s just what’s done,” Scarlet is forced to disappear after she kills the wrong Russian (it’s always the Russians, innit?). The only problem? She must also leave Sam behind, and in the care of The Firm’s leader, Nathan (Paul Giamatti), a stoic man who does his best to protect the girl who grows up to become his most indispensable hitwoman.
Alas, after sending her on a job that turns out to require far more carnage than she bargains for, Sam is told by Nathan, “This is business, Sam. And you landed on the wrong side of the balance sheet.” Translation: he can no longer go out of his way to shield her from the men in The Firm wanting her dead to sew up the loose ends she caused when she not only killed the son of the powerful rival leader, but also failed to get the money back that was stolen from The Firm by their accountant. Instead, she takes pity on him when she realizes he only stole it to pay a ransom for his daughter. It was an act of desperation, and Sam, by now, is all too familiar with acts of desperation.
Like any signature character would be in a Tarantino movie, Sam is bequeathed with memorable quirks—the most obvious one being her love of milkshakes. After her unexpected bloodbath, we immediately get acquainted with her dietary particularities when she opens her Smeg refrigerator (again, all part of the “retro yet sometime in the present” feel) to reveal a shelf filled with vanilla ice cream (with very Ben & Jerry’s-inspired packaging). She grabs for a carton and then takes out the milk as well. Time to make her consoling specialty: that’s right, a vanilla milkshake. Cue the sound of Enid in Ghost World noting in disgust, “Oh my god, he just ordered a giant glass of milk.” Her friend, Josh (Brad Renfro), corrects, “That’s a vanilla milkshake.”
We get more small glimpses into who Sam is with regard to her state of arrested development as she sits in front of the TV watching anime and eating a kids’ cereal called Scary Monsters. Overall, the movie seems out of time, save for several instances, including when she’s viewing this “cartoon” while eating her cereal and answers her Motorola Razr-esque flip phone (in pink). On the other end is Nathan, summoning her to the diner.
An exterior shot of the rain reflecting the glare of the neon lights outside of the diner emphasizes that Winding Refn technique again, while the sound of Bobby Darin’s “You’ll Never Know” playing in the background smacks of the pastiche Tarantino is so fond of using. What’s more, Darin is a specific choice to evince the 50s era that one automatically associates a diner with. Being a symbol of cookie cutter, “better” times, it’s no wonder the diner is deemed the only safe place in the city—because it’s the only place where no one is allowed to bring guns (hence Rose the waitress’ demand as someone enters, “Can I lighten your load?”). The tone and diner location of these meetings also echoes another “laddish” film that emulates the “gangster director” spirit, Terminal starring Margot Robbie (a movie that more accurately mimics Guy Ritchie’s flavor, itself another extension of Tarantino’s). But where Papushado adds his own unique stamp is in the books wielded throughout the movie. Not just the general fact that they’re used as storage for different types of guns, but also the specific titles of the novels, curated to match the gun size and scene mood. “Anna May sure can pick them,” Scarlet notes not just of the book Little Women, but of its interior contents. This said during the flashback that gives us the backstory on the moment Sam had to turn stone cold in order to cope with the pain of abandonment.
But before Scarlet shows up to announce this abandonment, Rose, the waitress, says the same thing to Sam that she will fifteen years later as she places the milkshake on the table: “I put in an extra scoop for my favorite client.” While the “feminist” overtones of the movie try their best, one thing that men will never seem to understand is that the girl who lives on a diet of milkshakes (or some other such “sweet treat”) isn’t going to be a “fit bitch.” No, she’s going to be too goddamn rotund to do much of any agile killing, but of course we must overlook this detail for the sake of embracing a character’s tied-to-adolescence idiosyncrasy.
Regarding the aforementioned Anna May (Angela Bassett), she seems to be the lone Black female of the cast in some bid to emulate the Vernita Green (Vivica A. Fox) role in Kill Bill Vol. 1. And, speaking of this Tarantino movie, there is an overt child vendetta angle at play in Gunpowder Milkshake (side note: one supposes we’ll never get that sequel to Vol. 1—Vol. 3—wherein Nikki Green [Ambrosia Kelley] goes after Beatrix Kiddo [Uma Thurman] in retaliation for her mother’s death). The child in question here being Emily (Chloe Coleman), who ends up along for the score settling-packed ride on both sides of what Nathan calls “the balance sheet.” An analogy he makes just before Jim McAlester’s (Ralph Ineston) endless river of thugs are sent to retaliate for the murder of his son (once again proving that you can’t fuck with a rich man’s male progeny). Collateral damage in Sam’s defensive rampage. The Firm, the very organization that has milk(shake)’d the most out of Sam, is the first to sell her out to save their own face, providing her name and location for the sea of Russian goons who can now only see the bounty on her head.
Enter the library, and the sisterhood within it. For Sam wearing an “Ingrid Bergman in Casablanca” hat casting her face in shadows isn’t the only thing that lends Gunpowder Milkshake a nostalgic air. There’s also the library. In all of its ornate glory (thanks to production designer David Scheunemann, art directors Anna Bucher, Wolfgang Metschan and Stefan Speth and set decorator Mark Rosinski). Here, we’re introduced again to Anna May—who we’ve already heard about—and her sistren, Florence (Michelle Yeoh) and Madeleine (Carla Gugino). Sam already came to them once before for new “broomsticks” (her guns “discreetly” masked in a bright yellow “I ‘Heart’ Kittens” duffel bag), and now she’s returned with an eight and three quarters child in tow. Succumbing to “caring” for the helpless bia because she did, after all, kill her father. Call it the curse of guilt, and, depending on how you look at it, a sign of a woman’s weakness or strength in allowing sentimentality to weigh her down. While it’s refreshing to see a female who doesn’t get squeamish about fucking shit up (read: killing people in cold blood)—for even Natasha Romanoff seems to get skittish in Black Widow—that’s sort of ruined by her predictable soft spot for a child. What is this, Léon: The Professional (and yes, Luc Besson is present as an influence in Gunpowder Milkshake as well)?
The accolade “good girl” is tossed around more than a few times in the movie, even from Sam herself, which seems apropos to Chvrches recent release, “Good Girls,” mocking that term. For even when older women say it to children, it sets the stage for playing into expectations that perpetuate patriarchal systems. And The Firm, obviously, is meant to represent one such patriarchal system. That’s why the opening scene commences with Sam’s not so thinly veiled metaphor, “There’s a group of men called The Firm. They’ve been running things for a long, long time. And when they need someone to clean up their mess, they send me.” As the embodiment of “all women” expected to just “clean up” after men’s messes (wars, violence and the generational trauma incurred from them), Sam is starting to understand just how incongruous this “arrangement” is. Not to mention the simultaneously low and high expectations for women, as manifest in the dialogue between three of Nathan’s beat-up lackeys and the on-call doctor assigned to “fix” them. The doctor asks, “Who fucked you up like this?” One of the lackeys replies, “A girl.” The doctor balks, “So a girl made the three of you look like you’re from The Walking Dead?” Ah, and yes, this pop culture reference (along with the use of a dead mall as a backdrop at one point) is another of the scant few things that brings the film into “modern times.”
The mockery of women being taken seriously even when they’ve proven their toughness (in the best manner they know how: by way of emulating violent male behavior) speaks to the idea that no matter how hard women try, they will not only never be men (as they shouldn’t), but will also never truly be accepted as equals by them. Because “The Firm” as a moniker has such multifaceted connotations for interpretation, it seems tailored to a movie set in Britain that it should echo what the Royal Family calls itself. Appropriately, another antiquated institution wherein the women who are part of it (not to mention the most powerful “head” of it being a woman herself) seek only to furnish the misogynistic tenets of the Establishment.
The full-circle nature of the end of the film finds Sam repeating her initial voiceover in actual dialogue to Emily, telling her, “It’s a group of men called The Firm. They’ve been running things for a long, long time. They make all the rules and… change them when it fits their needs. They think they’re untouchable. They think they can get away with anything.”
Emily, who has been pulling Sam by her fallopian tubes for the majority of Gunpowder Milkshake, insists that such a thing cannot stand. Considering her character building throughout the narrative, she’s meant to sound quite wise when she says this. It was likely that iconic driving scene that turned her so sage. For, after an advanced impromptu course on how to drive (minus the part where Emily gets to use her feet), the newly formed duo peels out of a parking garage, Emily as the arms, Sam as the feet. “Can I turn on the radio?” Emily asks. Sam confirms, “Go nuts.” Perhaps only on a British radio would Stereolab’s “French Disko” start to blare from the speakers when Emily does so. The tailored-to-the-situation lyrics iterate, “Though this world’s essentially an absurd place to be living in/It doesn’t call for bubble withdrawal/I’ve been told it’s a fact of life, men have to kill one another.” This has most assuredly been the mantra for Sam. The two roll up to the address (after escaping their pursuers) Nathan supplied to Sam for her to “get through the next few days” (or maybe not). Where her “care package” turns out to be her long-lost mother. Any potential “mushiness” is cut short with the arrival of McAlester’s army. We’re brought back into the present for a split second when Scarlet mentions that her only plan for getting out of this has been to call an Uber.
Tarantino abides once more with the trope of having one woman go up against an incongruous ratio of men in the library scene (that is, until Scarlet joins Sam to help her out). This isn’t “feministic” so much as a male view of feminism on steroids. Painting a woman as superhuman in her physical abilities in order to make up for the longstanding portrayal of female characters as “dainty” seems to be the name of the game for both Tarantino and Papushado. The notion of “feminism” in this line of work is also brought up on more than one occasion, with Sam being called out by the “aunts” for her equal opportunity killing of men and women, but of course, no children.
Being married to an Israeli and having met her in Israel, it seems only natural that Quentin should take a shine to this particular filmmaker—as made further evident by him ceaselessly promoting Gunpowder Milkshake’s screening at his theater in L.A., the New Beverly. And why not give a leg up to someone he’s been an unwitting mentor to? Case in point, like the grand finale of Death Proof, Papushado takes pleasure in letting the female leads give the ceaseless ass-beating to a male adversary. For the sole male understanding of “female equality” is in women placing men’s balls in a Mason jar, so to speak.
Elsewhere on the Tarantino influence front, what would a constant reference to a diner be (as is the case in Pulp Fiction) without a denouement that takes place in it, complete with monologue? Rather than coming from Sam, it comes from McAlester, who touches on that oft-broached subject of feminism as he claims, “You know Samantha, I’ve always considered myself a feminist. When my first daughter was born, I was over the moon. Painted half the house pink. It was all unicorns and lollipops. And my second daughter was born. And the third and the fourth. Girls. Always whispering at the dining table. Always giggling in dark corners. I love my girls. But I don’t understand them. Then my son was born. It was different. Simple. We understood each other.”
And so maybe all Gunpowder Milkshake really seeks to accent is that there can never be a genuine understanding between men and women, only a perpetual battle for power. Or is that merely the male interpretation of the situation? Concluding the movie with “Goddess on a Highway” by Mercury Rev playing as the quintet drives off into the sunset, it appears as though even men don’t really see a valuable place for themselves in the lives of women anymore. Unless it’s to, essentially, tell “their story” for them.
