The script, credited to Gregg Hurwitz (the popular Orphan X novels) and Philip Eisner (who penned Event Horizon), suffers from the double whammy of being both remarkably clunky and overly generic. The story of Sweet Girl is pure pulp and subtle as a brick, pitting a salt of the earth blue collar worker against the evils of big pharma. With both his and his daughter’s identities revealed, Momoa and Merced make a reluctant Lone Wolf and Cub as they take to the road with the hitman and various other mercenaries never far behind. This gives us our first dose of action in Sweet Girl as Momoa (and his obvious stunt double) tussle with the hitman, played by Manuel Garcia-Rulfo ( 6 Underground, Sicario: Day of the Soldado), which he barely escapes from. Now a single father to his teenage daughter, played by Isabela Merced ( Dora and the Lost City of Gold, Transformers: The Last Knight), Momoa receives a tip-off from a reporter claiming to know secrets about BioPrime that’ll “blow this thing wide open.” They agree to meet on a train, which unbeknownst to Momoa his daughter has also followed him to, however before their conversation can conclude the reporter is stabbed by a hitman. His wife does die, otherwise we wouldn’t have much of a movie. It just so happens that the CEO of the company, played by Justin Bartha (Doug from The Hangover movies), is appearing on a TV news show and taking questions from callers, so Momoa dials in and tells him in no uncertain terms “if my wife dies it’s your death sentence.” Unfortunately the drug never sees the light of day when a big pharmaceutical company called BioPrime pulls it off the market, leaving only unaffordable options on the table. Thankfully there’s a new affordable drug just about to come on the market which his wife is eligible for, offering a ray of light for the family. Opening with a voiceover from Momoa offering up generic musings on the meaning of memory and identity, we learn that his wife has cancer and doesn’t hold much hope. Sweet Girl does nothing to change that perception, and marks the directorial debut of Brian Mendoza (who served as producer of Momoa’s Road to Paloma and Braven). More often than not, you know what kind of character he’s going to be playing. Outside of his trident brandishing adventures Momoa has frequently taken on roles which cast him as a kind of spiritual Bear Grylls man-of-the-earth kind of guy – see Road to Paloma, Sugar Mountain, Braven, and his role in the TV series Frontier. In 2020 we got the Chris Hemsworth vehicle Extraction, a movie that puts him front and centre as an archetypal grizzled action hero more than any other title in his filmography, and in 2021 Momoa got his time to shine with Sweet Girl. With the likes of Cannon Films and PM Entertainment long gone, the streaming service has taken it upon itself to provide a platform (and the funds) for the kind of straight up macho action flicks that the likes of Hemsworth and Momoa would be headlining if we were still in the 80’s. One answer to the question comes in the form of Netflix. Life was good, but what do you do in-between these super-heroic cinematic outings!? It’s a similar story for Jason Momoa, who took the ill-advised decision to step into Arnold Schwarzenegger’s shoes for a critically mauled reboot of Conan the Barbarian, until he found his groove as the nautically inclined Aquaman. It was option 2 that happened for Chris Hemsworth, who’s biggest claim to fame was playing Patrick Swayze’s role in a disastrous remake of Red Dawn, when he took on the role of Thor and nailed it. you get cast as one of the more ripped superheroes in the MCU or DCU. You’re Vin Diesel so your “family” has your back, or 2. The bombastic action movies that dominated the 1980’s filled with ripped six-packs and bulging biceps had long fallen out of favour, and to this day there’s only really 2 options – either 1. Cast: Jason Momoa, Isabela Merced, Manuel Garcia-Rulfo, Raza Jaffrey, Justin Bartha, Lex Scott Davis, Michael Raymond-James, Amy Brenneman, Reggie Leeįor a long time it seemed like the musclebound hero was a thing of the past in Hollywood action cinema.
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