On paper, Pretty Lethal has a lot going for it: ballerinas forced to fight their way out using their ballet skills, a single-location premise, Uma Thurman playing the antagonist, and it’s co-produced by 87North Productions, the company behind the likes of Nobody, Bullet Train, and The Fall Guy. And yet, after spending nearly 90 minutes streaming Pretty Lethal, I can’t believe Vicky Jewson, whose filmography emphasizes strong female protagonists seen in Sofia Black-D’Elia’s Mina in 2014’s Born of War and Noomi Rapace’s Sam Carlson in 2019’s Close, squanders the potential of turning this movie into a propulsive action thriller.
Instead, what I have here is a movie that loses its spark long before it reaches its finish line. Kate Freund’s screenplay is a simple one: A ballet troupe, led by dance instructor Thorna (Lydia Leonard), boards a bus with her five young ballerinas – street-smart Bones (Maddie Ziegler), entitled rich girl Princess (Lana Condor), sisters Zoe (Iris Apatow) and Chloe (Millicent Simmonds), where the latter is deaf, and Grace (Avantika) – on their way to Budapest for a performance.
But their bus breaks down halfway on a quiet road, forcing Thorna and her ballerinas to seek shelter somewhere else. They soon end up in a sketchy inn, located deep in the wilderness, operated by former ballerina Devora Kasimer (Uma Thurman), who has ties with the criminal organization. Things go awry when one of them rejects Pasha’s advances, an arrogant and sleazy young gangster, played by Tamás Szabó Sipos, resulting in the latter impulsively killing her with his gun.
The ballerinas naturally freak out after witnessing the horrible incident, leaving Devora with no choice but to hold them hostage until she finds a way to sort out the mess. Apparently, the gangster is the son of a local crime lord, but it’s more of a perfunctory add-on rather than something significant that Jewson and Freund could have turned into a high-stakes situation.
Now, speaking of stakes, it lacks the much-needed escalating tension as the movie limps its way more often than giving us a visceral cinematic experience. It’s not like the movie is devoid of any action sequences, since there are plenty of them. Save for a nifty scene where one of the ballerinas elegantly slits a bad guy’s throat with the tip of her blade-embedded shoe, most of the action and stunt choreography feel rudimentary. Sure, Jewson executes these scenes with plenty of R-rated violence, but considering this is from 87North Productions, I was expecting more than just routine stuff. Besides, a good and acute director would have made use of the inn setting as a visual playground, allowing the ballerinas to improvise as a team to take down the bad guys. Such scenes are available, but too bad they occur so few and far between.
The cast, in the meantime, is a mixed bag: Ziegler made quite an impression playing the rebellious leader of the troupe, while Avantika does a good job getting all high after unwittingly ingesting drugs, providing the movie’s comic relief. Condor looks the part of someone with a snobbish attitude. However, their overall characters as a dysfunctional team with contrasting personalities could have used a substantial arc to root for their predicament, but the story barely scratches the surface.
Then, there’s the otherwise inspired casting of Uma Thurman is largely undermined in Pretty Lethal. Freund attempts to give her a backstory about how her past is connected with Pasha’s father (Michael Culkin), but it’s all glossed over in favor of focusing on the ballerinas attempting to escape the inn.
Finally, I figure Jewson would save the best for the last, especially with the third act culminating in Pasha’s father finally on his way with his heavily armed men. Once they arrive and an eventual standoff takes place, what could have been an all-hell-breaks-loose finale is disappointingly cut short with a flaccid action scene. Of all the action movies coming from the 87North Productions since they first produced Nobody in 2021, Pretty Lethal is easily their weakest effort yet.
The Review
Pretty Lethal
“Pretty Lame” would be the right title to describe this potentially ambitious, single-location action thriller.
Review Breakdown
-
Verdict
