Director: Shawn Simmons
Stars: Karl Glusman, Samara Weaving, Jermaine Fowler
Here we have a new straight-to-streaming action thriller with the appealing Samara Weaving in the lead, produced by (among others) Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick, the writers of the 2016 Deadpool movie. And while this feature is the creative effort of newcomer Shawn Simmons, a lot of the immaturity that powers Deadpool lives on in the spirit of Eenie Meanie. It’s the kind of flick that thinks a lot of swearing is cool. The kind of flick that thinks swearing is cooler if people are shouting. And the kind of flick that imagines screenwriting class begins and ends with the ’90s works of Quentin Tarantino.
And here I was thinking Ryan Reynolds was the one mostly to blame.
Weaving is the almost-titular Edith Meaney, nicknamed Eenie by run-of-the-mill Cleveland mafioso Nico (Andy García) in her juvenile days as a getaway driver. Edith’s done her best to move on from her criminally-inclined teenage years. She’s got herself a job at the bank. She’s going to college. But she’s inexorably tied to her past by her long-time on-again-off-again ne’erdowell beau John (Karl Glusman), an astonishingly annoying fuckup who is also the father of her unborn baby. Just going to see John is enough to drag Edith into some particularly hot waters, as an ill-fated escapade leaves the pair $3mil in debt to Nico.
Fortunately(?), Nico has a job in mind that could square things again; the heist of a car full of prize money from a casino. Edith is pressured into One Last Job with the calamitous John dangling around her ankles.
It’s hard to call what’s more wearying about Eenie Meanie; Glusman’s intense commitment to making John’s presence as exhausting as possible, or Simmons’ overthought yet still undercooked dialogue. Racial stereotypes persist in the peripheries, making it feel for all the world as though this script has sat around since the ’90s. If that were true, you’d think Simmons might’ve taken some time in the intervening years to improve it. In fairness, he occasionally hits on something affecting. There’s a surprisingly sweet soliloquy toward the end of the picture about – of all things – second toilets, which Weaving absolutely nails. But the scene it sits in is undercut by a needlessly violent coda which totally undermines the prior sentiment. Elsewhere contrivances just feel sloppy (who leaves car keys in their boxer shorts? Who has boxer shorts with pockets??).
This extends, unfortunately, to the wider premise, which spends a long time on motor-mouthed set-up to deliver some rather sub-Oceans thrills with a side-smatter of old-school Fast & Furious posturing. The heist itself – like Simmons’ direction – is rather perfunctory. Forgivable perhaps. But when you’ve spent a good hour instilling a sense of occasion and urgency about your maverick getaway driver, you should at least have something in the back pocket to sate stoked expectations. Eenie Meanie underwhelms as a vehicular actioner. Promising much, but delivering a brief, no-stakes road battle, seemingly over before it’s begun. If subverting expectation is the point, it’d be useful if there were something more exciting or interesting waiting to back it up. There isn’t.
Weaving commits to the bit admirably, and appears to be having fun with what she’s given to play with. Glusman, too. But John is so irritating by design that he has a habit of drowning out every other voice. As a portrait of folie à deux, it approaches sweet in its recognition that we sometimes don’t get a choice in the people we love. But making one of them this effectively annoying to sit with is a big ask from a movie with little else in it’s pocket.
The Lost Highway Hotel 