TRIGGER POINT -- A Familiar Yet Enjoyable Addition to a Tried and True Genre

Review by Dan Skip Allen

Movies about assassins aren't anything new these days. There are a lot of films with variations on the assassin tropes. The lonely man or woman lives off of the grid until he or she is brought back into which fictional or nonfictional agency he or she may work for. Trigger Point follows a lot of these tropes but is entertaining nonetheless.

Barry Pepper plays an assassin who lives off of the grid in a sleepy town until a man comes looking for him. He gets brought back into a world of guns for hire and espionage. He doesn't know who to trust — if anybody. This film treads very familiar ground in this genre, but it still does a good job of being an enjoyable film to watch.

Barry Pepper, like a lot of other actors who have portrayed lone gunmen such as this, is a very proud and private man. He has a similar routine every day: wake up, go to a little diner and get some tea and talk up the waitress, and then go across the street to a little book shop and get a book from the shopkeeper (who may or may not be his handler). A lot of James Bond-type stuff just in America instead of jolly old England.
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Assassins have a lot of baggage from their pasts that still haunt them each day. The one in this film is no different. This allows the viewer to get back the story on the lead character while not interrupting the flow of the film and the story within. The memories he is trying to unpack might help him figure out what is going on in the present day. And this works for the overall plot of the film in the end.

Besides Pepper, there are some good performances from the waitress in the diner (Nazneen Contractor), an old contact in his agency (Colm Feore), his daughter (Eve Harlow), and the book store owner (Jane Eastwood). They all add a semblance of reality to this fictional tale of assassins, special ops teams, and secret agencies. Every film needs a good supporting cast of characters to help it glow better.

The Ontario location is a beautiful one as well. The cinematographer, Brett Van Dyke, captures all the vistas in this area of the country perfectly. From farms houses in the middle of fields to little downtown streets. Even a shot or two of the ocean, adding a nice small town comfort to a film that has extraordinary events taking place in and around it.

Brad Turner, the director, does a solid job bringing this tried and true world of assassins and hitmen to life. He sets it in a nice sleepy town off of the coast of the United States which gives it a realistic feeling. Solid work from Pepper and the company makes for an entertaining film. Even though this genre has been done to death this film can still be an enjoyable entry.

Trigger Point hits theaters and VOD on April 16.

Rating: 3/5