I really kind of want to rate Sweet Girl just a little higher. It is a painfully generic and bland action movie with a hero with dubious goals who should have Child Protective Services called on him. Until it makes an unexpected – if perhaps unearned – turn in the third act that was certainly creating and daring. But it still couldn’t make the movie breath.

So the film stars Jason Momoa as a husband and father whose wife is dying of cancer. He has an experimental treatment snatched away from him when a crooked pharmaceutical company does its crooked pharmaceutical thing. He then wants… umm… revenge? Or maybe he wants to expose the corruption? Or catch an assassin? Expose a corrupt politician? It’s kind of vague… but what isn’t vague is that he drags his disapproving teenage daughter (played by Isabella Merced) along.

Yeah, for a lot of this movie, it’s kind of unclear exactly what Momoa is doing. The problem is how its character’s motives (and villains) are so hazily drawn. I know he’s mad and know he wants justice, but what exactly his plan is is nebulous at best. I will give Momoa credit though as he is allowed, as an actor, to break down and cry in an early scene. Whether or not he’s convincing is debatable but at least big tough guy Momoa was willing to stretch for a role.

Some of these questions of motivation (and CPS) are answered by that turn the movie takes. I was genuinely surprised by the turn and I think the movie was (finally) at least trying. Whether or not I could see the point behind it is another issue though. Instead of being clever, I kind of ultimately think it was just a storytelling gimmick. Where it leads though from a character perspective makes the movie more interesting at least… even if it still doesn’t make the movie’s action, drama, or suspense better.

So yeah, this movie ultimately just doesn’t work due to its painful filmmaking inadequacies. As an action/suspense/thriller it’s just painfully below average from a visual and excitement standpoint. It’s dull, it’s drab, and it spends a lot of time spinning its wheels as we try to figure out exactly what the main character’s plan really is. I wanted to like it more but the movie just kept being mediocre.

Score: 69