Director Brian Andrew Mendoza
Starring Jason Momoa, Isabela Merced & Manuel Garcia-Rulfo
Rated MA
Score 5/6
Devoted family man Ray Cooper, vows justice against the pharmaceutical company responsible for pulling a potentially life-saving drug from the market just before his wife dies from cancer. But when his search for the truth leads to a deadly encounter that puts Ray and his daughter Rachel in harm’s way, Ray’s mission turns into a quest for vengeance in order to protect the only family he has left.
Though I haven’t read any specific reviews regarding Sweet Girl but I have noticed that it has something of mixed reception. I will admit that the use of Sweet Child o’ Mine by Guns n’ Roses in the trailer is what attracted me to the movie in the first place (not my oddest method of choosing a movie to watch). Apparently, this was Brian Andrew Mendoza’s first feature film though he has worked Momoa before because they share a production company Pride of Gypsies.
What struck me as odd in an interesting way was the aspect ratio that they shot the movie in (I know I don’t usually comment about this stuff but there is a first time for everything) which gave off this odd yet watchable vibe most notably for the Pittsburgh chase scenes. This aspect ratio choice was unlike any other movie that I have seen in the past few months, it seemed like a decision that you would expect for a movie that is going to be screened on a cinema screen and not on a home television. I know there are more then a few people who might make fun of me for saying this but while watching this I couldn’t help but reminded of Uwe Boll’s 2013 movie Assault on Wall Street starring Dominic Purcell, though the third act for Sweet Girl is a little cooler than Assault on Wall Street. The few reviews that I have noticed for Sweet Girl had unfavourably compared it to the Jason Bourne movies and personally I didn’t see it, simply because Momoa’s character was not a secret agent.
Jason Momoa’s role as Ray Cooper was pretty much exactly the sort of role that you would expect from him, though I did enjoy his voice over moments. I’m not that familiar with Isabela Merced’s work, though it turns out that she was in Transformers: The Last Knight and after looking at her filmography I learnt that she was in the live-action Dora the Explorer movie Dora and the Lost City of Gold from 2019. Merced gave a great performance and I hope to see her in more action movies in the future. I was a little surprised to see that Justin Bartha and Amy Brenneman had been cast in this because it had been a couple of years since I have last seen them in a movie. I loved the scene Brenneman had with Merced towards the end of the movie.