EENIE MEANIE Review

I've never had whatever genealogical advantage it is to be a male in America and have a car fetish.

I've just not had any desire to look at cars or purchase cars or race cars or compare cars. It's all very expensive and boring to me. My car takes me where I need to go, and that's about all I know about it. But some people are VERY into their cars, man. They made an entire Fast And Furious franchise out of the idea of it.

So perhaps a new Hulu streaming movie called Eenie Meanie being about a getaway driver wasn't necessarily for me. Other movies about such characters--for instance, Drive, Baby Driver, and the original The Italian Job--I have personally found to be Good at best. Driving in movies is more exciting than driving in real life, but it often just makes me feel bad for the unnamed plebeians that these characters are ramming their souped-up cars into.

Eenie Meanie is the story of Edie, a girl raised in the foster system after her ne'er-do-well parents are arrested in a drug bust. As she grew up in the system, she met the people that would shape her life: John, her on again, off again boyfriend, and Nico, a crime boss who looks after Edie and gives her jobs to pull to help him make his money.

Edie has tried to put all of this behind her, though, as the movie starts with her having moved on from both men and having started attending college to make a better life for herself. She quickly finds out she is pregnant from a tryst with John a few months before, however. When she goes to talk to him about this, she finds he is being hunted by Nico's men.

John and Edie team up to talk to Nico, who offers them terms: he will forgive John's debt to him if Edie helps him rob a three million dollar poker prize. And just like that, Edie is back with both men she had been trying so hard to avoid.

TWO UPS AND TWO DOWNS

+ There is a great third act twist to this one that really upsets the apple cart and changes the mood of the movie. You and I are obviously very different people, but I personally did not see the late twist coming at all, and it upgraded the movie to a-whole-nother level for me.

Obviously, with this Up being about a twist, I don't want to get too heavy into it. You should watch and experience it for yourself! But it took a premise that was pretty vanilla (more on that in a few seconds) and added a lot more flavor.

+ Samara Weaving is very believable in her role, and she does an excellent job. She is one of those actresses that I'm shocked hasn't broken through and become an A-lister because it feels like EVERYONE loves her. If you spend any time on the film aspects of social media and see her name come up, the amount of praise heaped upon her is huge. I just remain constantly befuddled that when I see her, it's almost exclusively in smaller streaming roles. I wonder if she takes those parts because she enjoys doing them more? But we will see how she does with Ready Or Not 2 as a theatrical release in a year or so.

Regardless, her role here as Edie is typically well-acted for her. She sells the movie on her talent, and this is entirely her picture. At least when she takes these streaming roles, she is the unquestioned star of the show, and she really gets to flex her acting muscles. So this is a pretty big Up, because without a lead actress that feels like she belongs on top, Eenie Meanie would fall on its face. Luckily, it has Weaving, and she puts the whole project on her back.

- Marshawn Lynch is as fun as usual, but his role feels extraneous to just add a bit more conflict to the movie in the third act. This movie could have done without that wrinkle. I feel like I have seen a few movies recently that have had unnecessary antagonists because it felt like the screenwriters didn't trust the plot itself to be enough of an obstacle--I'm literally writing another review right after this one that has a similar Down--and I'm not sure why that is. Other than that they think we viewers are idiots.

Anyway, Lynch plays Perm, a rival driver to Edie. Why is he called Perm? For a quick gag about hair in a flashback that isn't particularly funny or necessary. I'm never going to be upset about seeing Marshawn in a picture; I am, after all, a lifelong Seattle Seahawks fan. But I wish he felt like the movie actually needed him and didn't just shoe-horn him in to get him in the flick.

- Until the twist in the third act, this is a pretty generic "just when I thought I was out, they pulled me back in" heist movie without anything noteworthy about it. It was kind of boring for a while. For the first two acts, nothing outside of Weaving's performance draws you into the film. It just coasts along, feeling like a really poor man's Ocean's Eleven. Nothing is terrible, but nothing is overly inspired, either.

The action is mediocre. The driving and car chases are surprisingly negligible in movie about a getaway driver. If the early going of the film had some hook, ANY hook, besides Weaving, I could have been more engaged while I watched it, but this was a flick that just kind of... "happened".

Now, granted, as I said: the twist ended up pulling me back in. And there's something to be said for that. The movie lulled me into a false sense of security thinking this was all going to be generic and by-the-book, just for the third act to feel even more mind-blowing when things go sideways. But you know what's better than doing that? Being a good movie for all three acts.

OVERALL

This is a movie where the Ups ultimately outweigh the Downs for me, even if only by a little bit. What I'll ultimately remember about Eenie Meanie is the surprising third act and Samara Weaving having yet another go in a smaller budget picture where she gets to shine. I do wish it had been more even throughout and that the action and suspense beats were better made, but on the whole? This is on the plus side of recommending.

🍿 SCORE = 62 / 100