Sean Parker
Hulu’s latest original release, Eenie Meanie, hit the streamer last week while I was entrenched in FrightFest films and reviews. But, of course, I still wanted to review genre favorite Samara Weaving’s (Scream VI, Ready or Not, Azrael) latest endeavor. I watched no trailers and had zero knowledge of what I was getting into when I hit the play button on the film this past week, which is how I honestly prefer watching movies these days. Written and directed by Continental showrunner Shawn Simmons, and using a poster that suggests a gritty B-movie aesthetic, I settled in to watch one of my favorite final girls spread her wings in some genre-adjacent fair. With a talented cast of recognizable faces like Andy Garcia, Mike O’Malley, Randall Park, Marshawn Lynch, Jermaine Fowler, and Steve Zahn, how on Earth could I lose?
Eenie Meanie starts off with a bang, both literally and figuratively. After providing some contextual background for Young Edie (Elle Graham) as a kid, the film dives right into adult Edie’s (Weaving) life. After breaking with her boyfriend of fifteen years, Edie aspires to do something with her life, attempting to get her college diploma and dig herself out of the slums of Ohio. When an accident lands her in the hospital, her bloodwork indicates she’s three months pregnant and has to decide whether or not she should tell her ex, John (The Bikeriders’ Karl Glusman), and potentially invite his chaotic lifestyle back into her life. Against her better judgment, she decides to see him and walks in on a group of men ready to execute him in his apartment.
The film immediately becomes a sharp action thriller as the audience’s perception of Edie shifts from an elder-collegiate to a John Wick-like figure, utilizing her surroundings as weapons to help John escape a deadly situation. The action intensifies with one of the best car chase getaway sequences this reviewer has seen in a long time, and Eenie Meanie suggests an impressive romp of action, comedy, and high-stakes thrills.
As with the lore behind the John Wick films, there’s a backlog of history for Edie, whose Baba Yaga-inspired persona, “Eenie Meanie,” has a very compelling past involving heists and getaways that have made her a legend in this underground syndicate. After the last job nearly cost her her life, catching two bullets from rival Perm (Lynch), she swore off the lifestyle. However, in order to clear up John’s mess of kidnapping Leo (Park), a card shark used by the syndicate, for his own get-rich-quick scheme, she, like Wick, is very much back.
It’s here that the film shifts its tone into darker territory. Through the first and part of the second act, the audience is having an incredibly fun ride. Garcia enters as a made crime boss, overseeing operations and ensuring people like John don’t screw with them. He offers the ex-couple a shot to dig themselves out of a hole with an Ocean’s style scheme to steal three million from a casino and wants Eenie Meanie as the getaway driver. If they pull it off, they get to walk away without any additional consequences.
While it sounds like we’re heading for more fun, it abruptly vanishes from the film, and a pervading seriousness takes over. Although it fits the sentiments of Corman-backed ‘70s car B-thrillers and genre favorites like Dirty Mary, Crazy Larry or Two-Lane Blacktop, and even pays homage to Steve McQueen’s Bullitt, the film never reaches those heights, being bogged down by melodrama and changing genres too frequently. Essentially, Eenie Meanie has no idea what it wants to be, shifting from romantic action-comedy to serious drama thriller and turning a cold shoulder to the audience watching. The film’s finale was a bit of a shock, one I understood as a necessity for the characters’ evolution, yet it becomes decisively dour and a far departure from where the film began.
From a production standpoint, the film is incredibly well done. Locations are well-utilized, and the film’s cinematography and direction are particularly effective. The initial car chase from John’s apartment grabs hold of the viewer, who is prepared to stick around to see where the film goes. The filmmakers use a ridiculous number of cameras and employ some quick edits to capture Eenie Meanie’s adrenaline-raising stunt work. Meanwhile, Weaving and Glusman are a pair we’re interested in seeing get out of this scrap. But, as the film immerses them in a deeply rooted organization of miscreants, the movie loses its realistic relatability, and it goes hard in its efforts to get us back, involving Weaving’s father (Zahn) and a history of poor parental decision-making.
Thematically, Eenie Meanie is about facing the past and letting go of childish things in order to transition into adulthood. While it succeeds in creating characters that embody those traits, the story itself is a bit overcooked in its attempt to incorporate too much historical context into a film that, frankly, doesn’t need it. Eenie Meanie’s complexity is derived from its central characters’ emotional maturity, which is often clouded by the film’s willingness to draw them back into a state of nostalgia, a place the audience is unable to share with them because they never get to witness it.
Ultimately, Eenie Meanie isn’t bad; it’s just frustratingly middling. The cast is stacked and terrifically enjoyable, and there are some fun moments in the incredible car chase sequences, but for people looking for a film carrying similar themes and criminal aesthetics, I think they should seek out Trevor Stevens’ super-indie, buddy-crime-spree flick The Misadventures of Vince and Hick, currently on the festival circuit. While it may not supply all the household names of Eenie Meanie, Vince and Hick accomplishes the fun and gritty getaway film that Eenie Meanie desperately wants to be.
Eenie Meanie is now streaming on Hulu.
Eenie Meanie | Official Trailer | Disney+
She can get away from anything. Except him.
