Written by Kate Freund
Directed by Vicki Jewson
Bones: "These guys are drunk and out of shape, and we're prima fucking ballerinas."
Was anyone in the mood for a ballet meets Hostel (sort of) themed movie? Well, Amazon Prime recently served up something in that regard and it's kind of a mixed bag. Partly entertaining and very much ridiculous but here we are.
You've got a ballet troupe comprising of Bones (Maddie Ziegler), Zoe (Iris Apatow) and her sister, Chloe (Millicent Simmonds), Grace (Avantika) and Princess (Lana Condor). For the most part, they're a troupe that were largely at odds with one another until the movie needed them to step up or get killed.
They're mostly kept in line by their dance instructor Thorna Davenport (Lydia Leonard) but upon entering the wrong hotel owned by Devora Kasimer (Uma Thurman). Let's just say that it didn't take long for all hell to break loose or for Thorna to be shot in the head. From this point onwards, it just got more and more violent.
Every man in this movie, including characters such as Pasha (Tamás Szabó Sipos), Lothar (Michael Culkin), Doktor (Gábor Nagypál) and Yuri (Julian Krenn) etc would be revealed to be a violent would be rapist and general misogynist. Because of this, the ballerinas had to put their many differences to one side and work together to make it out of the movie alive.
I'll admit the characters themselves are likable enough if not the most well drawn out. Bones somewhat became the defacto leader of the group and almost lost her leg when it turned out that Devora was a former ballerina missing a leg. Much as I love Uma Thurman as an actor, her European accent tended to verge on parody at times here.
The movie itself though did have some fun in the way the girls used their ballet skills to actually fight back against their oppressors. I'll give the movie points for some incentive enough scenes there before Devora's act of extremism took care of a bigger threat.
- The film was originally titled Ballerina Overdrive. Lena Headey was attached at one point to star in it.
- Kate Freund played Sona, a character who ended switching sides by the third act.
- Standout music: Snap! Rhythm Is A Dancer (Ballerina Remix).
- Chronology: Present day Los Angeles at the start with the majority of the movie set in Budapest.
As I said at the start of this review, I found Pretty Lethal to be mostly entertaining but it's also a bit messy too. Overall, it's decent enough with a few incentive moments of violence and team work. It won't be the best thing you watch this year but neither will it be the worst either.
Rating: 6 out of 10
