What’s It About
Trigger Warning centers on Special Forces commando Parker (Alba) becoming the new owner of her dad’s bar in their hometown after his sudden passing. Back home, she learns that the town is now controlled by a violent gang as she aims to get answers about the tragedy.
MOVIESinMO REVIEW
Starting with an unsteady opening chase, “Trigger Warning” struggles to find excitement. Set in Syria’s Badiyat al-Sham Desert, an elite team led by Parker (Jessica Alba) rushes after suspected terrorists in the worst CGI trucks resembling an SNL sketch. Parker’s jeep, a clunky prop on a soundstage, bounces as she shoots from its window. This short sequence ends with a lackluster, gaudily filmed crash of a Syrian truck. “Trigger Warning” is painfully dull, with every actor striving to deliver some of the worst lines I’ve heard in a film this year. Jessica Alba portrays Parker, a Special Forces Commando who returns to her hometown to manage her father’s bar after his suspicious death in a mine collapse, leaving only a simple letter expressing he missed her. Parker instinctively investigates her father’s death, uncovering a gang terrorizing the town. Dramatic music awkwardly plays as Parker reconnects with her high school prom date, Jesse, now the sheriff, who acts very suspiciously about her father’s death. This setup hints at a decent action movie, but the execution, from acting to mannerisms, is disastrously off. “Trigger Warning” is a grim, serious film without the budget to realize how delightfully absurd it could be if it embraced its nature. Or, at least, the skill to elevate it to the level of suspense it desperately seeks. Jessica Alba shows no emotion, with her character Parker appearing indifferent to her father’s death despite flashbacks suggesting they were close. Additionally, Parker’s primary weapon is a knife, used in almost every fight. In a seemingly ordinary world, there are no rules for who she can kill with her knife. While the film could be about Parker seeking the truth about her father’s death, the conspiracy keeps unraveling with a terrible script and bizarrely implied lines. It doesn’t help that Parker seems unconcerned about her father’s death. Her fixation on stabbing people might have wholly suppressed her emotions. It’s unclear how and why this character was conceived. A lot of money was wasted bringing a college-level drama script to life, which is disheartening. The cast looks miserable, as if they are waiting for their Netflix paycheck. If you make it to the end, you’ll find a few decent action scenes, but the character’s journey could be more straightforward. The mine where Parker’s father dies is central to the story but turns into an unbelievable tunnel leading anywhere. The villains are absurdly dumb, yet they pull off a heist most couldn’t manage, stealing weapons from an Army depot. “Trigger Warning” is full of bad dialogue and jokes, condescending exposition, and awkward character interactions that are cringe-worthy (Gabriel Basso’s Mike and Alba’s Parker make even a hug awkward). Jessica Alba’s comeback film is so poorly acted and written that it redefines overused tropes and clichés. The movie isn’t even a self-parody, exaggerating the genre because it’s too lazy to achieve the “so bad it’s good” status of similar films.
OUR RATING – A VERY LAZY 2