‘Pixie’ Review: In Ireland, They’ve Seen Too Many Tarantino Movies Too
Although there have been events to want he didn’t write a lot of it, no person writes dialogue fairly like Quentin Tarantino. We all know that as a result of so very, very many have tried, fueling an entire subgenre of blatant “Reservoir Canine” and “Pulp Fiction” imitations that mercifully started subsiding across the flip of the millennium, however nonetheless pop up at the very least a pair instances per yr. What they often have in widespread is a brash confidence within the wit of their snappy patter and ingenuity of their pretzeling plots — in addition to ceaselessly being useless unsuitable on each counts.
“Pixie” is an Irish story, and consequently additionally recollects the display work of the McDonaugh brothers of their extra Tarantino-esque modes. However this collaboration between veteran producer Barnaby Thompson (whose solely prior directorial options had been the lead-footed “St. Trinian’s” reboots) and his author son Preston goes past homage or aspirational imitation, into the realm of pale, shameless mimicry.
Worse, this bullet-riddled comedy caper set amongst equally deadly gangsters and clergymen in Eire’s picturesque rural West appears completely delighted with its personal cleverness, in inverse proportion to the quantity of precise cleverness to be discovered. An honest solid and quick tempo make “Pixie” simple sufficient to take as disposable leisure. But it additionally has that annoying edge distinctive to movies that strike an perspective of rakish sophistication whereas really serving up lowbrow quips about jail rape, fats individuals and menstruation. Saban Movies is releasing to U.S. theaters, digital and VOD platforms on March 5.
We meet Olivia Cooke’s titular determine at her ma’s grave, swearing at present is the day “we’ll lastly set a bomb below this city for what they did to you.” However Pixie’s authentic plan is undone, as she’s left stewing on the airport, ready for a no-show companion to board a aircraft to San Francisco. That has a lot to do with what occurred after her ex-boyfriend Colin (Rory Fleck Byrne) and obvious present one Fergus (Fra Charge) robbed a quartet of clergymen in incongruous possession of a lot money, in addition to 15 kilos of MDMA.
In some way that contraband quickly falls into the arms of naive-but-greedy uni college students Frank (Ben Hardy) and Harland (Daryl McCormick), which Pixie shortly susses out. Although way more resourceful than both, she decides to maintain them on as non permanent enterprise companions, as they fight to determine tips on how to liquidate the belongings in a rush with out getting killed.
This might be troublesome, as varied events are already scorching on the path of the stolen loot, together with a goon squad dominated by Pixie’s personal IRA gun runner turned business crime boss, Dermot (Colm Meany), and the unbelievable community of “lethal gangster clergymen” led by Father McGrath (Alec Baldwin). These two factions have a longstanding grudge match whose uneasy truce this new hassle ends, with Pixie and her new besties caught within the crossfire.
Pixie is supposed to be ruthless, fearless, caustic, magnetic, a little bit of a attainable perv, but in addition considerably Manic You-Know-What Dream Woman, apparently all issues to all males. “She received’t simply break ya, she’ll take a Kalashnikov to yer coronary heart,” one determine opines in a single amongst many labored stabs at repartee right here. Cooke handles the half with a breezy, bemused, wised-up enchantment. Nonetheless, she hardly appears “all that,” and the fault lies far much less with the performer than with a personality whose superficial gloss of laboriously spelled-out Woman Energy solely underlines how strained a male-gaze assemble she is.
Nothing about Pixie is credible (least of all when she’s making an attempt to tug off a dud flippancy like “My instincts are telling me we should always get our skedaddle on”), but neither she nor the movie are flamboyantly synthetic sufficient for that to work as a deliberate gambit. The dullards, psychos, schemers and bystanders she’s surrounded with are expertly solid, however as written they’re one-dimensional with out the zest of outsized caricature. Sudden violent reversals of fortune ring hole; nothing right here has resonance on the one hand, or actual wit on the opposite. The climactic slo-mo bullet ballet in a church may as properly be a pie combat, the entire enterprise having grown so foolish by then.
Proper via the closing credit, the Thompsons keep a tone of cheeky swagger at distinct odds with the stuff this film is definitely strutting. After some time, “Pixie” seems like that man on the occasion who’s laughing too lengthy, too laborious at jokes that aren’t superb — and he’s the man telling them. The movie’s packaging is its biggest energy, whilst its polish finally highlights the flimsy content material.
All of the floor parts are in place for a rollicking comedy thriller, besides thrills don’t look like Thompson Sr.’s sturdy swimsuit, and humor is probably not Thompson Jr.’s both. To dive this deep into borrowed Tarantino territory, you want to have a agency grasp on these two issues at the very least, and in each respects, “Pixie” is a weak handshake satisfied it’s making a knockout impression.
