Not much of a heist movie.
Samara Weaving has given herself a game changing career with movies like “Ready or Not” or “Three Billbaords Outside Ebbing, Missouri,” but her latest action comedy “Eenie Meanie” is a missed opportunity. She plays a reformed teenage getaway driver named Edie, whose nickname was Eenie Meanie. Hence the title.
Her life as a banker and college student is complicated. But things get more complicated, when she ends up having to deal with the trouble her ex-boyfriend John (Karl Glusman) has gotten them in. His idiocy brings her back to her former boss Nico (Andy Garcia), who offers to spare him, if she drives the getaway car for a casino heist.
Ok, ok, we have the premise, but what of it? It might attract some people on Hulu, and it is produced by Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick, both of whom wrote the “Deadpool” and “Zombieland” movies. But for me, it was too boring to take any chances. Throughout this movie, I kept thinking about “Baby Driver,” which had Ansel Elgort driving the getaway car while wearing headphones. That movie was literally in perfect sync with the music and action sequences; this one doesn’t have the soundtrack, style, or charisma to match up to that original movie.
The strongest point of “Eenie Meanie” is how it tries to go for the emotional jugular with how the main heroine’s life has turned out. She expresses her emotions in her scenes with Glusman, Gracia, and Steve Zahn as her lousy father. At least, they aren’t mean-spirited and want to take a break from the old buddy comedy formula, which is bantering and chases and bantering and chases.
It’s funny because I think I just reviewed a heist movie earlier this August on Amazon Prime Video, called “The Pick-Up” with Eddie Murphy, Pete Davidson, and Keke Palmer. That would-be action comedy was much worse, because of its choice of humor, characters, premise, and the fact that Murphy looks like he didn’t want to be a part of it, and I don’t blame him.
And by a strange coincidence, it also featured former football player Marhsawn Lynch, who is having a bad year at the movies, beginning with “Love Hurts.” In “Eenie Meanie,” he plays a former associate of some sorts of the main characters, who has to betray them. You bet her does. But at the very least, it doesn’t last very long, and these people are smarter than Jason Sudiekis and Charlie Day were when Chris Pine screwed them over in “Horrible Bosses 2.” I think these boys should learn a thing or two from Weaving and Glusman.
Not that I’m making any comments or anything, but Weaving has sounded like she’s playing American characters before. But for some reason in this movie, she sometimes sounds like she’s struggling to cover her Australian accent. Her emotional scenes work, but the comedy she’s placed in is not up to the level of how she dealt with those satanists in “Ready or Not.” I mean having Randall Park as a trapped card counter getting smacked by a car, and his blood splattering on her face isn’t exactly comedy gold.
And I’m barely seeing any likability or humor in the Glusman character, especially how he transitions from a goof ball to a so called serious man. I don’t even think he was trying to be serious later on.
“Eenie Meanie” wants to be a heist comedy, but it’s not much of a “Baby Driver” wannabe. It’s too cheap to pedal to the metal, and it’s like driving in a school zone.
Now Streaming on Hulu
