What if an American ballerina quintet was gunned down in a mob attack in Central Europe? Director Vicki Jewson answers this question in “Pretty Lethal,” at first with confidence, but ultimately with all the silliness and some imaginative power inherent in this setting. The film does some little things well, so it does each of them more than once, from repeated action beats, to the popular needle drop about dancing (“Rhythm Is a Dancer,” “Everybody Dance Now”), whether they fit the tone or not. But its premise never develops enough to be left ridiculously abandoned, yielding diminishing returns.
Bones (Maddie Ziegler) is a street-smart, rough-and-tumble dancer in the world of riches, but she’s gone too far to earn a major solo, earning her the wrath of her spoiled, prim-and-proper ballet company teammate Princess (Lana Condor). Their very names are mean and brutal, evoking broad characteristics that make them only half-suited for the upcoming action meeting. When we first meet their ballet company – led by their dutiful British instructor Thorne (Lydia Leonard) – their differences are tempered by the princess’s beautiful jealousy. But, after aggressively investigating Bones, the group comes together for a well-coordinated performance in rehearsal, proving that they can get along when needed.
Unfortunately, this is where the film’s problems begin, long before their trip to Hungary for a big competition. For one thing, while having the dancers perform in perfect harmony is a logical requirement for being invited onto a grand stage, having them prove their coordination so early on deprives them of a more cinematic option, meaning they have to come together as a unit as the film goes on. For another, despite being an important part of the film’s ensemble, the other three teammates are practically invisible. There’s Grace (Avantika), whose entire persona is her comedic piety, although she eventually has to indulge in some physical comedy through accidental drug abuse. But even this caricature is more than enough for Zoe (Iris Apatow) and her deaf sister Chloe (Millicent Simmonds), whose collective task is to interpret for the latter in American Sign Language, but little else.
One diverted flight and a broken down team bus later, and the dancers and their teacher find themselves in the dingy Teremok Inn, a castle-like institution in the Hungarian woods, several hundred miles from their destination in Budapest. The patrons are largely clingy, tattooed men who speak Hungarian-accented English with strange American idioms that seem out of place (a weakness that troubles many American screenwriters), but the inn is run by a former ballerina, Devora Casimer (Uma Thurman), whose entanglements with local mobsters become the catalyst for much of the film’s action. Then, that she’s a dancer like our hero ends up adding very little, whether through theme or creative set pieces, and ends up with Thurman giving a rare misfire performance, no matter how clearly her wannabe-gonzo villainy is presented.
The men’s aggression towards the ballerinas and their patrons is presented in absolutely realistic colors, with sudden violence as a response to scornful sexual advances. It’s astonishingly, horrifyingly shocking, and it immediately justifies any and all retribution on the horizon. Soon, the young heroines (dressed in their leotards and feathered tutus) witness a murder and find themselves locked in the basement of the inn, as the gangsters above try to stop them from calling the police, while also dealing with their own less interesting interpersonal problems.
This leads to a chaotic situation in which the Hungarian mobsters slowly descend to either take advantage of the girls or kill them, forcing them to rely on their discipline and athletic training to respond. First of all, it’s fantastic. The pointy ballet shoes, and the box cutters they use to scrape them for better grip, become delightful makeshift weapons, as the dance routines serve as martial arts. KatasAnd the girls’ pristine white dresses gradually turn bloody. As these scenes unfold, the film sets some important rules for itself, notably including that the dancers be presented with realistic flair, and that they are always on the backfoot.
Whether the film is “realistic” or not is a moot point, particularly because the beautiful young ballerina is physically unmatched. However, with their teamwork so quickly overpowering the bad guys, the story is much less interesting. It takes very little for them to actually get on the same page. Once they leave the confines of the basement for more expansive locations, the film’s visual and thematic flaws come to the surface. The girls are dressed alike, and have similar strengths and skills, leading to lackluster effects and action choreography, and sometimes confusion about who is actually doing what when the camera zips away.
Bones is a pretty great action heroine, if only for her rah-rah speeches and her manic laughter in the face of men who want to control her. Ziggler, in turn, puts on a clincher of a showdown between Bruiser and Scream Queens. However, apart from broad gestures towards women empowerment, there isn’t much to say as the film progresses. Once you get past its first action scene, you’ve almost seen everything. Its ideas are never any more innovative or exciting than what we’re shown in the opening act, and when it comes time to wrap things up, there’s no climax to speak of (not one that involves the heroes, anyway). “Pretty Lethal” has a wonderfully original idea, but its execution falls flat.