**Trigger Warning Making People Boycott Netflix – It’s Too Dreadful to be Offensive**
When you sit down to watch a film titled “Trigger Warning,” you might expect a bit of provocation. Netflix’s latest original offering, a revenge thriller starring Jessica Alba as a hardened American commando, has indeed left viewers triggered. However, the reaction is not one of shock but rather annoyance and offense, with some viewers threatening to boycott Netflix over the film’s crass depiction of warfare in the Middle East.
A social media post, which has garnered over 65,000 likes on X/Twitter, highlights a controversial scene at the beginning of the film. In this scene, a Special Forces team disguises themselves as humanitarian aid workers and comes under fire from Syrian militants. The post, accompanied by stills from the action sequence and subtitles reading “[Terrorist in Arabic],” criticizes the film for normalizing Americans hiding in aid trucks to shoot and murder Arabs. The user wrote, “Boycott this racist ass movie that normalizes Americans hiding in aid trucks to shoot and murder Arabs. Does this sound familiar to anyone?”
Others echoed similar sentiments, stating they would avoid the streaming service due to the film’s reductive handling of this sequence. While “Trigger Warning” does not explicitly endorse the American characters’ actions, which amount to a war crime, the film glosses over the issue, leading to further criticism.
Proclamations of a boycott should be taken with a grain of salt, as social media outrage does not always translate to widespread action. However, the sheer reach of these posts is noteworthy. On a fundamental level, the movie itself does not have much of a leg to stand on. “Trigger Warning” is problematic in its fleeting depiction of conflict in Syria, but this is only a small part of the film.
Directed by Indonesian filmmaker Mouly Surya, the movie seems more progressively inclined in other areas. Most of the story takes place in the US, where Alba’s character returns after the suspicious death of her father. The villain is a slimy right-wing politician played by former teen star Anthony Michael Hall. However, any political commentary here is ultimately redundant. “Trigger Warning” is too messy and poorly crafted to convey any coherent political ethos. It is a shoddy spin on “Rambo” that lacks the political venom and righteous fury of “First Blood.”
Despite its current position atop the Netflix viewing chart, “Trigger Warning” is far from a success story. Critics’ reviews have been nearly unanimous in their scorn, with the movie holding a rating of just 25 percent on Rotten Tomatoes. Even more damningly, it seems that regular viewers feel the same way. They have criticized everything from the action to the cinematography to the dialogue. A particularly insipid example of the latter is when Alba’s character describes her father’s death in a mining accident, saying, “I’ve been thinking there was some kind of… poetry or something, in the fact he was swallowed up in his favorite place… he loved that damn cave.”
Alba, taking on her first film role in five years, is not the main problem with “Trigger Warning.” However, the film is not the gritty and propulsive comeback she may have hoped for. “Trigger Warning” is also bad in ways that are wholly unremarkable. It is merely the latest forgettable action schlock to emerge from a system that churns it out regularly. It is hard to say whether it is any worse than the Ryan Gosling thriller “The Gray Man” or the Chris Hemsworth-starring “Extraction.” These films are not just lackluster but utterly generic in their failings.
Interestingly, “Trigger Warning” is not even the first Netflix Original to bear that title. It shares the moniker with a 2019 docuseries fronted by Run the Jewels rapper Killer Mike. It’s a good thing when genre films like this are scrutinized with critical rigor. Movies should not be exempt from proper accountability just because they fall under the banner of light entertainment. However, there also has to be some perspective. “Trigger Warning” is too throwaway to get worked up about. It is better to save the boycott for something that actually stands a chance of winning people over.
In conclusion, “Trigger Warning” has sparked significant controversy and calls for a boycott due to its offensive depiction of warfare in the Middle East. While the film attempts to tackle various political themes, it ultimately fails to deliver a coherent message. Critics and viewers alike have panned the movie for its poor execution, making it another forgettable entry in Netflix’s catalog of action films. Whether the boycott will have any lasting impact on Netflix remains to be seen, but the film’s reception suggests that it is not worth the outrage it has generated.
Source: The Independent
