Trigger Point (2021)

2 Stars (out of 4)

Shoot Button

By Jeffrey M. Anderson

Sturdy, workmanlike, and even somewhat stylish, the action flick Trigger Point is also too familiar and predictable; it likely won't be remembered by the viewing public long enough to warrant its promised sequels.

Nicolas Shaw (Barry Pepper) lives a simple, small-town life, but also has a sophisticated security system in his home. Nicolas's former colleague Elias Kane (Colm Feore) comes to him, and we learn that Nicolas was once a member of a spy organization called "The Agency" and that, under torture, he may have given up the names of eight colleagues, who were then killed.

Now Elias's daughter, who was investigating the truth, has been taken, and he needs Nicolas's help to get her back, discover who set up Nicholas, and uncover the identity of the assassin. Nicholas reluctantly agrees, but not even he can know what lies in store for him.

Directed by Brad Turner — a TV veteran with a long, impressive list of small-screen credits — Trigger Point has a few cool sequences, from the ins and outs of Nicolas's heavily-protected country home to a shootout amongst a row of greenhouses surrounded by a cornfield. The movie is taut and lean, and Pepper is fine as the hero, even if he feels like a lower-rent, "B" movie version of John Wick, Jason Bourne, or Ethan Hunt.

Certainly the "retired and in hiding" ex-super-spy is an old cliché, and the movie can't quite get away from other old cliches as it goes along, from the overly-complicated dialogue-based setup, to the unsurprising double-crosses. Indeed, the movie often feels as if it starts after all the good stuff left off.

A general low-energy quality keeps things from ever getting very tense or exciting, and that generic title — just what does Trigger Point mean here anyway? — will probably make this movie fade away quietly and painlessly.