God grant me the serenity and the wisdom of knowing the difference between movies and this, the closest we’ll ever come to experiencing someone of Meryl Streep’s caliber in a Death Wish spinoff. The always brilliant, technically perfect Viola Davis stars opposite comic relief Jennifer Lopez as a pill- and support-group-addicted mother who “gets her Tina Turner on” by methodically taking out the gang of gorillas responsible for killing her son. It’s laugh-out-loud hilarity when the gals go undercover as gun-totin’, selfie-snapping hoochies or furnish an apartment Charles Bronson style. A major-league submission by Lifetime that’s spiked with a type of R-rated violence and profanity that would never fly on the mother channel. A ludicrous third act reveal — think Paul Kersey meets Harvey — is enough to drop your jaw another three inches. Tack on two more for the open-ended possibility of a sequel. Oxygen to the lungs of bad cinema connoisseurs. Directed by Charles Stone III. (2015) — Scott Marks
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