Grief, guilt, and vengeance are intrinsically linked, which is why any good revenge movie is driven by these very human emotions. Chad Faust’s Ballistic has been teased as an action-fueled revenge flick, led by capable star Lena Headey, but it’s something else entirely. Yes, the desire to get payback is central to this powerful story, but greater is a mother’s desire to do right by her son, and the darkr road she travels to achieve it.
Ballistic is set in small-town Ohio (albeit shot in Ontario), where Nance works at a munitions factory, shipping ammunition to aid the war in Afghanistan. Her son Jesse (Jordan Kronis) is preparing to ship off to join that fight, and Nance couldn’t be prouder of him. Before that, he marries his pregnant girlfriend, Diana (Amybeth McNulty), with a plan that she’d move in with Nance while he’s away. But things go sideways quickly. Nance returns home from work, only to be met at the door by Galinda (The Handmaid’s Tale‘s Amanda Brugel), commander of the nearby Army base, that Jesse has been killed in action.
While this would be the end of the revelations for most movies dealing with a mother’s grief, Ballistic is truly unique in where it goes next. Nance, overcome with rage and despair, demands to see the bullet that took her son’s life. She isn’t allowed to rip it out of his body at the funeral, but her curiosity just won’t let this go. She eventually discovers that the bullet that killed her son was manufactured right there in the same factory where she works, possibly by her own hand, and sold to the Taliban on the Black Market.
This sets Nance off on a self-destructive path of revenge, driven by her own guilt and anguish. The thing about these emotions is that they open you up to even worse influences. Nance begins lashing out at everyone she once cared for; including her boss (Veronica Mars‘ Enrico Colantoni) who feels no responsibility for the bullets he sends out into the world. But also Diana, who needs Nance now more than ever.
An interesting subplot involves Nance’s turbulent relationship with Kahlil (Hamza Haq), head of a survivor support group. Her hatred curdles into bigotry aimed at anyone of Middle Eastern descent, including Kahlil, and conspiracy theories fueled by extremist podcast. It isn’t long before Nance, who disavowed the use of guns despite her profession, is spending all of her free time at gun ranges and looking up the best AR-15s to add to her arsenal.
As Nance begins targeting those she feels responsible for Jesse’s death, her real anger is towards the military-industrial complex. Ballistic is ultimately about how this behemoth swallows up entire towns and destroys lives, with most of never hearing a single word about it. Sure, we hear about the massive defense spending bills, but we never stop to think about what any of that actually means on the ground and in people’s homes. I find it funny that a movie about the United States military industrial complex is a Canadian production with an English lead actress.
Headey, who has a busy week with the action flick Normal opening in a few days, is incredible as a mother who is so racked with grief she becomes unrecognizable from her old self. Faust, whom I still remember from starring in the heavenly comedy Saved!, previously directed another small-town drama, Girl, that dealt with a different kind of death in the family. Better than most, Faust understands how trauma and tragedy can drag a person down into a sinkhole of terrible decisions that they might not be able to recover from. Clocking in at around 90-minutes, Ballistic still feels like it’s circling the drain for too long, and a tease that kicks the film off ruins an integral moment later. But that doesn’t take away from Headey’s performance or Faust’s nuanced examination of a mother’s grief, and a war machine that thrives on it.
Ballistic is open in theaters now.
