What if an American ballerina quintet was dropped into a mob flick in Central Europe? Director Vicky Jewson answers this question in “Pretty Lethal,” at first with aplomb, but eventually with all the follies this setting implies, and few of the imaginative strengths. The film does a small handful of things rather well, so it does each them more than once, from repeated action beats, to popular needle drops about dancing (“Rhythm is a Dancer,” “Everybody Dance Now”) whether or not they tonally fit. But its premise never evolves enough to let loose in ridiculous fashion, yielding diminishing returns.
Bones (Maddie Ziegler) is a street-smart, rough-around-the-edges dancer in a world of wealth, but she’s made it far enough to earn a major solo, making her a target of ire for her spoiled, prim-and-proper ballet company teammate Princess (Lana Condor). Their very names evoke the scrappy and the bratty, broad characteristics that make them a halfway decent fit for the forthcoming action rendezvous. When we first meet their ballet company — led by their conscientious British instructor Thorna (Lydia Leonard) — their variation is discordant, owing to Princess’ pretty jealousies. But, after aggressively shoulder-checking Bones, the group comes together for a well-coordinated performance in rehearsal, proving they can get along if they need to.
Unfortunately, the movie’s problems start here, well before their trip to Hungary for a major competition. For one thing, while the dancers performing in perfect unison is a logistical necessity for their being invited to a grand stage, having them prove their coordination this early robs them of a more cinematic alternative, i.e. having to come together as a unit the more the film goes on. For another, the other three teammates are rendered practically invisible, despite being a key part of the movie’s ensemble. There’s Grace (Avantika), whose entire personality is her comic piety, though she’s eventually afforded some physical comedy by way of accidental drug ingestion. But even this caricature is more than what’s afforded to Zoe (Iris Apatow) and her Deaf sister Chloe (Millicent Simmonds), whose collective function is the former interpreting for the latter in American Sign Language, but little else.
A diverted flight and a broken down team bus later, and the dancers and their teacher find themselves at the dingy Teremok Inn, a castle-like establishment deep in the Hungarian wilderness, several hundred miles from their destination in Budapest. The patrons are largely skeevy, tattooed men who speak Hungarian-accented English with awkward American idioms that feel out of place (a weakness shackling many American screenwriters), but the inn happens to be run by a former ballerina, Devora Kasimer (Uma Thurman), whose entanglement with local mobsters ends up the catalyst for much of the movie’s action. Then again, that she’s a dancer like our protagonist ends up adding very little, whether by way of theme or creative set pieces, and ends up with Thurman giving a rare misfire performance, albeit thanks to how flatly her wannabe-gonzo villainess is rendered.
The male aggression towards the ballerinas and their chaperone ends up rendered in starkly realistic hues, with sudden violence as a response to rebuking sexual advances. It’s wonderfully, sickeningly shocking, and it quickly justifies any and all reprisals on the horizon. Before long, the young heroines (dressed in their leotards and feathered tutus) witness a murder and find themselves locked in the Inn’s basement, as the gangsters up above try to prevent them from calling the police, while also sorting out their own, far less interesting interpersonal troubles.
This leads to a chaotic rigmarole in which, bit by bit, the Hungarian mobsters stream downstairs to either take advantage of the girls or do away with them, forcing them to rely on their discipline and athletic training to mount a response. At first, it’s magnificent. Pointed ballet shoes, and the box cutters they use to scrape them for better grip, become delightful makeshift weapons, as dance routines serve as martial arts katas, and the girls’ pristine white outfits grow gradually bloodier. The film sets some vital rules for itself as these scenes unfold, including and especially that the dancers are presented with realistic flair, and are always on the backfoot.
Whether the film is “realistic” is a moot point, especially since the petite young ballerinas are physically outmatched. However, that their teamwork so quickly outclasses the bad guys makes for a far less interesting story. They have to do very little to actually get on the same page. Once they leave the confines of the basement for more sprawling spaces, the movie’s visual and thematic flaws come frothing to the surface. That the girls are identically dressed, and have the same strengths and skillsets, leads to a flattening of impact and action choreography, and the occasional obfuscation of who is actually doing what when the camera zips by.
Bones is a pretty stellar action heroine, if only for her rah-rah speeches and her maniacal laughter in the face of men who seek to control her. Ziegler, in turn, puts on a clinic of a performance halfway between bruiser and scream queen. However, beyond broad gestures towards female empowerment, there just isn’t much worth rooting for as the film goes on. Once you get past its first action scene, you’ve pretty much seen it all. Its ideas never get more innovative or exciting than what we’re shown in the initial act, and when it comes time to wrap things up, there just isn’t a climax to be spoken of (not one that involves the protagonists, anyway). “Pretty Lethal” is a wonderfully original idea, but its execution falls flat.
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