Film / Gunpowder Milkshake

Scarlet: You are an incredibly impressive young woman. There's not a single person on Earth I'd rather kill people with.
Sam: Thanks, Mom.

Gunpowder Milkshake is a 2021 neo-noir action dramedy. It was directed by Navot Papushado and written by Papushado and Ehud Lavski. It stars Karen Gillan, Lena Headey, Carla Gugino, Chloe Coleman, Michelle Yeoh, Angela Bassett, Freya Allan and Paul Giamatti. It was released on Netflix on June 14, 2021.

Fifteen years ago, hitwoman Scarlet (Lena Headey) killed the wrong person and had to abandon her daughter, Samantha (Karen Gillan), to be raised by Nathan (Paul Giamatti), a representative of "The Firm," the organization that Scarlet worked for.

In the present day, Sam has grown up to be a hitwoman of her own and one night she accepts a job to kill a man who stole millions from the Firm. However, it turns out that he stole the money in order to pay the ransom for his kidnapped daughter Emily (Chloe Coleman) and Sam decides, after shooting him, that she needs to save his daughter herself.

Things take a turn, however, when Nathan calls and tells her that Sam killed a very important person's son during an earlier hit and he has to take away her protection. Now, on the run from an army of goons, with Emily in tow, Sam turns to the one person she can trust: her mom. They, in turn, go to a sisterhood of "librarians" that Scarlet had once belonged for protection: Madeleine (Carla Gugino), Florence (Michelle Yeoh), and Anna May (Angela Bassett).

Between these women, a lot of people are going to get killed.

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Tropes included in Gunpowder Milkshake:

• Action Mom: Scarlet. She even tells Sam later on that after she got pregnant, she had no other options other than becoming a hitwoman.
• Action Girl: All the female characters in the movie are exceptionally competent fighters, able to hold their own against assailants in far superior numbers. Even 8 years old (and three quarters) Emily performs remarkably well under pressure and is able to drive a car with Sam's help.
• Alliterative Family: Scarlet and Sam, mother and daughter.
• Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking: When the librarians hand out a series of Book Safes (containing weapons) to Sam, Madeleine ends up by giving her an (actual) Agatha Christie book, "to read".
• A Simple Plan: The plan to save Emily was simple: Sam would exchange Emily for the money, then go and kill the kidnappers so she could return the money to the Firm. What Sam didn't count on was for the kidnappers to quickly turn on each other and blow up the money with a grenade.
• Badass and Child Duo: After killing her father, Sam feels duty-bound to rescue Emily, an eight (and three quarters) year old girl.
• Beauty Is Never Tarnished: Averted. Sam takes hard hits to the face throughout the movie. She has a cut lip, cut brow, and bloody nose.
• Book Safe: There are so many in the library that one has to wonder if there are any actual books in there.
• Break His Heart to Save Him: When Emily wants to stay by Sam's side as McAlester's goons close in, seeing herself as Sam's "apprentice", Sam must come clean then and there about being responsible for the death of Emily's father so Emily will not be close as the killing starts.
• Car Fu: Sam (with help from Emily) manage to kill all of their pursuers (bar one) and total their cars through a clever use of her car and the topology of the parking lot (her bulletproof windshield helped too).
• Casting Gag: Angela Bassett (Anna May) previously portrayed a character named "Anna Mae" in What's Love Got to Do with It (1993).
• Chain Pain: During the fight in the library, Florence uses a chain to kill several mooks. And then several more. Finally, she wraps the chain around one mooks neck and pulls the other end over the balcony.
• City with No Name: The film presumably takes place in America, but it's never specified exactly where.^note It was filmed in Berlin.
• Combat Breakdown: Sam's two fights against the "Boneheads". While in the first everyone is fit and healthy, they begin the second with everyone disabled to some extent. Sam's arms are paralysed, forcing her to fight by spinning wildly and hoping to hit something. Of her three opponents, one is in a wheelchair, the second on crutches, and the third has an arm in a sling.
• Concealment Equals Cover: Justified in the library battle when Sam and Scarlet take cover behind the circulation desk. Each time it's shot, there's a metal clang, indicating that it's been armored.
• Contrived Coincidence: Sam's quest to rescue Emily (which has her going against the Firm's orders) just so happens to take place just hours after she kills Jim McAlester's son.
• Contract on the Hitwoman: Scarlet had to leave her daughter because she killed the leader of the Russians, despite them being a member of the Firm, so she was a target. Something similar happens to Sam when she kills Jim McAlester's son and the Firm takes away her protection, resulting in a massive number of killers coming after her.
• Disappeared Dad: Sam's dad was murdered by the Russians before the events of the movie.
• Every Car Is a Pinto: The kidnappers' car crashes and bursts into flames after one of them shoots the driver.
• Evil Sounds Deep: McAlester, courtesy of Ralph Ineson's rumbling bass.
• Extremely Short Timespan: All the violence of the movie takes place over a 12-hour span.
• Eye Scream: After the climactic diner fight, Florence kills Virgil and then turns just enough to reveal her eye has been damaged, and is later seen wearing an eye patch.
• Fake Food: The whipped cream on Sam's milkshake looks perfectly fresh after she's been waiting for her mom for three hours. Also, the level of the milkshake remains the same even though two people are drinking it. It is lower after an angle change though.
• Faux Affably Evil: McAlester is a ruthless mobster but he is initially portrayed sympathetically as a grieving father who wants revenge on his son's killer, similar to how Scarlet wanted revenge for her husband's death. However, his affable façade goes away when he tells Sam that he will slowly torture her to death and have Emily watch all of it.
• Fauxshadow: During a tense first meeting with the initially not entirely friendly librarians Sam makes it clear that she considers killing women fair game (in contrast to the old fashioned "no women, no children" line from The Professional.) The implication is that Sam might come into conflict with one or more of these other deadly women during the film. Not only does that not happen, there are no female antagonists at all in the movie.
• Feminist Fantasy: The heroes are all powerful women who are regularly shown to be much more dangerous than most of the male opponents they face, and do not show any need for male help in any way. Their enemies include a group of men who try to control everything and another crime lord who idolises his son and complains that he can't understand his daughters. All the henchmen sent at them are bloodthirsty males.
• Foreshadowing: During her first encounter with the librarians, Sam corrects them when they say she does not kill women or children by saying that she does accept contracts on women, but she does not deny the children part. Turns out not only she refuses to kill children but also refuses to let them die.
• Gatling Good: Madeleine has a Gatling gun inside her van. She pulls it out when she needs to kill all of the approaching mooks and she has Emily listen to loud music.
• Girls with Guns: Lots and lots of guns.
• Guns Akimbo: At various points in the movie, Sam, Scarlet and Florence dual wield guns. In the library fight, Scarlet dual wields guns with knives on them.
• Handicapped Badass: Sam is briefly made into this when Dr. Ricky paralyses both her arms. With some help from Emily she manages to slaughter the Boneheads and total two cars chasing her.
• Hitman with a Heart: Sam can't resolve herself to abandon a kidnapped little girl and even tries to save her father after she shot him. She is rather quick to adopt Mama Bear tendencies toward Emily too, while losing nothing of her efficiency.
• Hot Librarian: Three of them, but Madeleine is the one that plays the trope the straightest. Of course, they are also more than just librarians...
• The Hyena: After getting laughing gas, all three of the Boneheads giggle constantly.
• Kids Driving Cars: Sam can't drive with her arms paralyzed, so she has Emily sit on her lap and operate the steering wheel and gearshift, while Sam handles the pedals.
• Kill the Parent, Raise the Child: Sam is sent to assassinate a man who stole money from the Firm, but right after she fatally shoots him, she discovers that he stole the money to pay the ransom for his kidnapped young daughter, Emily. He begs her to save Emily as he dies, and Sam spends the rest of the film trying to protect her. After defeating the villains, Sam and Emily run off to start a new life together, along with Sam's mother and her mother's friends.
• Mama Bear: Scarlet to Sam and, pretty quickly, Sam to Emily.
• Missing Mom: Scarlet, Sam's mom, goes missing for fifteen years.
• Morality Pet: Emily becomes this for Sam, in particular when she prevents her from killing Dr. Rickey. Sam acknowledges this and tells him to remember he lived thanks to an eight year old (and three quarters) girl.
• Never Bring a Knife to a Gun Fight: McAlester and his goons are armed to the teeth with bladed weapons during the diner fight, but it doesn't do them much good against foes armed with firearms.
• Nightmare Sequence: After the Diner massacre, Sam has a nightmare of Emily shooting her in retribution for her father's death.
• No Honor Among Thieves: The kidnapper with the Frankenstein mask murders his comrades to keep all the ransom for himself, accidentally destroying it and getting himself killed in the process. It probably would have worked better if he had waited until they reached their hideout instead of killing the getaway driver while he was driving.
• Open Heart Dentistry: Dr. Ricky is a dentist, but it's clear that he gets a lot of visits from injured members of the mob or the Firm. The nurse has a giant tooth which she keeps people's guns in and Dr. Ricky has a canister of laughing gas for his patients (and himself).
• Oral Fixation: Virgil McAlester has a match in his mouth throughout the movie. The only time it's not there is when he fights and kills Madeleine.
• Papa Wolf: McAlester, who wants revenge on Sam for (unknowingly) killing his son.
• Pet the Dog:
  • Dr. Ricky tells his nurse "I think you should go on your break now", letting her escape before the fighting begins.
  • Nathan does seem to genuinely care for Sam and does his best to keep her out of trouble until the Firm decides she has become a liability. Even after that he sends her to her mother before bailing out on her.
• Revenge Before Reason: Scarlet decided to kill her husband's killer, even though she knew this would make her a target and force her to abandon her daughter.
• Rule of Three: The Boneheads try to get up three times when going to intercept Sam before being stopped by Nathan who adds additional orders. When they stay put at the end of his last interruption, he then ask them what they are waiting for.
• Running Gag: Emily stating her exact age. "Eight and three quarters."
• Scars Are Forever: Sam still sports a scar from the cut her father's killer made on her cheek 15 years earlier.
• The Siege: McAlester's men attack the Library in full force in the climax of the movie. Justified since Sam and Scarlet are a Badass Family that killed the first wave and they're swarming them with numbers of opponents. It does the mob little good against not just the duo, but the Librarians as well.
• Small Girl, Big Gun: At one point, Madeleine wields a Gatling gun mounted on a van.
• Spin Attack: In her second fight against the "Boneheads", Sam's arms are paralyzed, so she has Emily tape her gun to one hand and a knife to the other. The subsequent fight involves her spinning wildly and hoping to hit something.
• Strange Minds Think Alike: When Emily notices Sam was shot in the shoulder, she says that it could get infected, worms could get in, and she could lose her arm. After they get to the doctor's office and Dr. Ricky is trying to think of an excuse to inject her with a sedative, he takes a look at her shoulder and says it could get infected and she could lose the arm.
• Sword and Gun: After Dr. Ricky paralyzes her arms, Sam gets Emily to tape a scalpel in one hand and her handgun in the other. Even if she can't move her arms, she can swing her arms and she ends up taking out the three "boneheads" sent after her like that.
• Throwing Your Gun at the Enemy: Played for laughs the first time. Sam throws her gun by accident into Virgil McAlester's face while her hands are getting over the paralysis injection. Played straight in the climax since Scarlet attached a bayonet to one of her guns and throws it at a mook, killing him.
• Too Dumb to Live: The Frankenstein thug. Shooting the driver in a car full of other armed criminals is the best way to guarantee that you'll end up as worm food.
• Too Good for This Sinful Earth: Madeleine is the kindest member of the librarians, and arguably the main cast. She's fatally wounded while protecting Emily, and dies apologizing for failing everyone.
• Truce Zone: The diner and clinic try to be this, with a strictly enforced no-guns "check you guns at the door" policy. The first is violated when the Boneheads try to kill Sam, the second when the librarians raid it to rescue Sam (although since they are dressed as diner employees they may be technically exempted from the rule). Interestingly, the mafia goons have plenty of melee weapons, suggesting that only firearms are banned (though the head thug breaks even this rule)
• Use Your Head: When Dr. Ricky forcefully paralyzes Sam's arms, she responds by thrusting her forehead into his face, pushing him away and breaking his nose.
• Women Are Wiser: The librarians, throughout the movie. In the last act, they formulate a brilliant scheme to help save Emily from her captors.

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