Eenie Meanie (2025)

Written and directed by Shawn Simmons, Eenie Meanie has the air of something given to someone finally allowed a shot at feature film-making after years spent helping to create entertainment for the small screen. A quick glance through the filmography of Simmons confirms that, yes, that's exactly what has happened. Simmons has his name on about 30 or 40 various TV show episodes, but this is his first major film credit. He helps himself immensely by getting Samara Weaving for the main role. Sadly, he spends a lot of the movie then working against himself.

Weaving plays Edie (nicknamed Eenie Meanie by some). Edie used to be the best getaway driver in the business, but she got out of that life. Unfortunately, her on/off boyfriend, John (Karl Glusman), didn't. He now owes Nico (Andy Garcia) a large debt, and Nico has a plan for John to repay that debt with a major score. It will need an excellent getaway driver though.

There's nothing new here. The super-skilled getaway driver has been done in a number of movies. The ex-criminal unable to go straight because they've been manipulated into one last job has been done in almost every other crime flick from the past hundred years. And daring heists that have people using skill and a bit of luck to defy impossible odds? Well, I'm sure you can name a few films with that main plot point. So the only real novelty here is having Weaving as the central figure, and it's her charisma and talent that make this more watchable than it otherwise would be.

Simmons makes the mistake of not really nailing down the tone, which doesn't help. Some moments are fun, some moments are thrilling, and some moments take viewers on a hard turn into a road called downbeat street. If these different strands flowed and blended well then Eenie Meanie could have been a pleasant surprise, but they do not. None of the fun moments reach their full potential as viewers are reminded of the high stakes, the same goes for the thrills (a couple of expected driving stunts aside), and the most downbeat moments feel as if they've been spliced in from another film entirely.

Weaving is great. When is she not? That's rhetorical. Don't answer, especially as I anxiously try to remember the many film appearances she has racked up that aren't deserving of her good work. Glusman is fine, although he has to struggle at portraying a character who feels quite irredeemable. He's a greedy and selfish idiot, and doesn't get any big moment to turn things around. Garcia delivers the goods in a few scenes that are real highlights, and the rest of the supporting cast members - including Steve Zahn, Jermaine Fowler, Marshawn Lynch, Randall Park, Mike O'Malley, and Chris Bauer - are almost all wasted. Nobody is given enough time or character development, which is more annoying when it means more time spent in the company of Glusman's character.

There's a nice muscle car being put through its paces in the third act, the score is decent, and Weaving gets to carry the film. It's just a shame that there's nothing more to it, and it's a shame that I was thinking about twenty better movies I could have rewatched instead of giving this one 106 minutes of my time. 

5/10

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Watcher (2022)

It can sometimes be hard to tell when art is deliberately commenting on a major issue in our society, or when that commentary might just be coincidental, especially when it comes to movies within the thriller and horror genres. Take Watcher, for example, which is a thriller about a young woman in Bucharest who starts to think that she is being watched by a potentially deadly stranger. On the surface, what you have here is a standard, and solid, thriller. Yet it also feels like a film about the feeling that women often experience many times in a single day, especially when they try to explain to others who may dismiss their worries as paranoia.

Maika Monroe is the lead here, playing Julia, and she has moved with her partner, Francis (Karl Glusman), to a country she is completely unfamiliar with. She hasn't even had time to learn much, if any, of the language, so it's understandable that she feels more alone than ever while Francis gets busy with his new job. Unfortunately, Julia then starts to suspect that someone is watching her from a building across the street from them, and that someone may also be trying to follow her when she is out and about in Bucharest. Julia befriends a neighbour, Irina (Madalina Anea), but her moments of relaxation in friendly company are always offset by the tension she feels when she may be being watched again. It certainly doesn't help that the news is busy reporting about a serial killer who beheads his female victims.

Written and directed by Chloe Okuno, from a screenplay by Zack Ford, this is an impressive debut directorial feature from someone who has been honing their craft with a number of shorts over the past decade. Her 2014 short, Slut, has an interesting premise, meaning I really want to see it ASAP now, and I enjoyed her segment, "Storm Drain", in V/H/S/94. Equally comfortable with creepy moments and sudden shocks, Okuno is happy to keep building the sense of dread and discomfort on the way to a finale that delivers what you hope, but in a slightly unexpected way.

Monroe is great in the main role (but fans of her work will expect her to be great in everything anyway), and Anea is a welcome and warm presence in the film. Glusman has to be the busy, and sadly dismissive, husband, but he's not turned into an outright villain. The fact that he doesn't take his wife's concerns as seriously as she wants him to is typical of how many men can be when women voice any opinion about the world seeming a much more dangerous place from their perspective. Last, but not least, is Burn Gorman, as the neighbour who may or may not be a creepy voyeur.

A lot of Watcher plays out as you think it will, but that's not a criticism. This is solid and chilling stuff, helped enormously by having Monroe at the centre of it. It doesn't ever feel like essential viewing though, sadly, although I have seen many other people rate this as one of the best films of last year. I thought it was good, boosted by that inevitable commentary underpinning everything, but I wouldn't rush to rewatch it.

7/10

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Netflix And Chill: Wounds (2019)

It seems as if I have been hearing about Wounds for a long time, and very little of it was good. Written and directed by Babak Anvari, who previously delivered the great Under The Shadow, his feature debut, it's a horror film that seems to have left many viewers underwhelmed and unsatisfied. I really don't know why, and I personally put it on par with Anvari's first film.

Armie Hammer is Will, a bartender with a bit of a messy life situation. He lives with his partner, Carrie (Dakota Johnson), may have a thing for regular patron, Alicia (Zazie Beetz), and has to put up with crap during his shifts like fights started by Eric (Brad William Henke). And then he finds a mobile phone that contains some disturbing photos and video clips, and makes him a target for who, or what, is at the other end of the line.

Based on a novella - 'The Visible Filth' - by Nathan Ballingrud, Wounds is a slight film that chooses to focus on a fracturing psyche and small moments that hint at a disturbing bigger picture. Moving from the subtle spookiness of his debut feature, Anvari continues to show how good he is at building atmosphere, but this time it's an atmosphere of immediate dread and confusion, once people see certain images that are impossible to perceive as being based in our established reality.

As strange a comparison point as this may seem, and maybe not a positive one for many people, Wounds feels very much like a film running in tandem with Unfriended: Dark Web. It's someone discovering a hitherto-unknown world, one in which those running things seem scarily knowledgeable and powerful, and where the most twisted acts are committed just, well, just because someone thought something up. There may not be any obvious price list, but there's never any doubt that people are paying something, even if it's not with cash.

The only downside of the film comes from the casting. I quite like Hammer in the right role. This isn't the right role. He seems too cocky for a bartender who also seems too old to be at that place in his life (trust me, I picked up some bar work in my early thirties, and felt far too old for it then). Johnson is an actress I have liked in a few other movies, and she can deliver when asked to stretch herself, but she's completely wasted here. Beetz is allowed to shine, albeit momentarily, but she's alone. Henke isn't a good character, he's a plot point, used effectively on the way to an interesting final scene. And you have Karl Glusman as Jeffrey, the young man in a relationship with Beetz's character. He's also not used well, and is actually given one of the worst scenes in the whole film.

I'll forgive the problems in the casting/acting department though. Wounds is a film of ideas, it's one that puts together a number of unsettling moments as things spiral further and further towards the kind of cosmic horror and insanity that Lovecraft fans should enjoy. And it solidifies Anvari's reputation as a very talented director. I hope he gives us some more horror genre work in the future.

8/10

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