Peppermint is all about the guns.

It's a classic heavy metal, shoot-first ask questions later, violent visceral shooting fest.

Vengeful vixen Riley North, played by Jennifer Garner who reprises some Alias TV series mettle, flexes some of the most sculpted, incredible looking arms around (hello, gun show!)

No floppy tuckshop action here.

I just wish the writers in director Pierre Morel’s payback flick had paid as much attention to what they were doing as Garner has clearly put into getting her body in shape for the role.

But isn’t that life in Hollywood? Nothing seems to matter so much as the look of the thing.

In the end, Garner’s “Angel of Skid Row” backstory is so frustratingly unexplained, that all that is memorable about the entire flick is her amazing biceps.

For ages I was stumped as to why something with so much gunfire and gore was called Peppermint.

And even though it’s explained right in the beginning, it took my mate to remind me why as the credits rolled.

I’ll share it with you, dear readers, as based on this review it’s unlikely you will rush out to see this flick.

The film’s title takes its name from the flavour of ice cream our heroine’s daughter, Carly, picks from the Christmas fair on the night of her birthday.

Carly, who is 10 (played by Cailey Fleming), is flanked by her mum, Riley, and dad, Chris (Jeff Hephner).

Together they are a typical American family of three.

Riley is a sweater-wearing, plain-looking, middle-class mum who rushes home from her day job at a Los Angeles bank to be there for her daughter’s birthday.

She isn’t assertive with her boss and she politely navigates parental politics at Carly’s school.

Chris is an unassuming mechanic who is talked into a getaway driver gig that involves robbing a local drug dealer, by a so-called buddy.

He’s sketchy on the details and pulls out mere hours after agreeing to be involved.

Turns out the deal involved robbing one of the city’s most powerful underworld figures – Diego Garcia (Juan Pablo Raba) – who, unsurprisingly pursues anyone who dares – nay, even plans briefly – to cross him.

The so-called buddy is tortured and killed for daring to orchestrate so audacious a robbery and Garcia sets his caricature-like henchmen on our all-American dad to make an example of him.

The family are eating their ice creams when they are gunned down in a drive-by shooting, leaving only Riley alive.

The murders progress to a court hearing, which is set to fail in the face of systemic corruption and a host of police and bureaucrats who are all-too-happy to uphold Garcia’s grubby grasp on the city.

With her sanity in doubt, Riley flees as the men who killed her husband and daughter go free.

On the fifth anniversary of Carly and Chris’ murders, the trio who skipped jail time are murdered and strung up on a ferris wheel at dawn.

It’s quite the statement, but it’s also impossible not to wonder how our heroine single-handedly did the deed.

As the police slowly connect the dots between a series of disappearances and killings related to the murders of Chris and Carly, we begin to hear a little about just where Riley has been hiding and honing her skills these past five years.

And suddenly, what appears to be a straight-up revenge killing spree, finally gets interesting.

Maybe we’re about to learn just how Riley has channelled her anger into majorly up-skilling in the weapons and killing stakes, as well as transforming into a hardcore badass.

But no. Straight up revenge schlock is all we get.

As the death toll rises, we get no closer to learning our heroine’s backstory, and it is DEEPLY unsatisfying.

Despite solid performances by John Gallagher Jr (The Newsroom) as Detective Stan Carmichael and John Ortiz (Silver Linings Playbook and many others) as Detective Moises Beltran, Peppermint has a ridiculous ending.

I was waiting for a sympathetic jury to acquit Riley - OJ Simpson style - given that she single-handedly took out a major drug cartel and a host of corrupt peeps.

In hindsight, even that would have been more believable.

Peppermint is a misfire.

Except for those biceps. Those things are the real deal.