TL;DR – An absolutely solid action film that understands the visual language it wants to engage with and makes it shine.

Post-Credit Scene – There is no post-credit scene.

Disclosure – I paid for the Amazon Prime subscription used to watch this film.

Pretty Lethal Review Introduction

I have been on the hunt for a good action film lately, and unfortunately, I have been hit by a wave of disappointments. When you are on a bad run, it is time to remove your preconceptions and try for something outside of the box and today that means dancing as if your life depended on it.

So, to set the scene, a group of ballerinas, Zoe (Iris Apatow), Princess (Lana Condor), Chloe (Millicent Simmonds), Grace (Avantika), Bones (Maddie Ziegler), and their instructor Thorna Devonport (Lydia Leonard), were on their way to a showcase in Budapest when their flight got diverted, and the transfer bus broke down in the middle of the forest 300-odd kilometres away from the capital. No service, cold and drenched from rain, they stumble into the one hotel in the little town in the mountains. A short wait for a minibus should have been fine, but when bullets start flying, it will be a fight for their lives.

Visual Style

Now, it is 100% a contrivance to get all the girls into their ballerina outfits before the bullets start flying? Absolutely. Does it work? Completely. Much like the bride’s outfit in Ready or Not, the transition from perfect white to blood-stained calamity is written large into the costumes and the vibe of the film. There are these almost innocuous moments at the start where you see them use all these blades as part of them getting their costumes ready, and you better believe they use that at every chance they get. All the actors embody this energy that you need to make this feel even remotely plausible.

Interesting Juxtapositions

One of the things I liked about Pretty Lethal is the different layers that are going on in the narrative. Having Bones being from a low socio-economic area means that she has some sense of just how bad a situation they are in, that all the rich girls cannot comprehend. Then we have Devora Kasimer (Uma Thurman) using the situation caused by the idiot Pasha (Tamás Szabó Sipos) to get out from under the thumb of his daddy Lothar (Michael Culkin). These narrative layers give the film the texture it needs, which is impressive given how much texture is already hanging on those fur-lined walls.

Spinning Action

Now, this is an action film at its heart, so how does the action land? Very well, actually. It could have been all spinning around hard objects. However, they first wisely understand the physicality of the ballerina’s form and integrate that directly into the action sequences. Still, they also know that in a world of punches, knives cut deep. I don’t think I have ever seen a twirling ballerina pirouette with a hammer as the Sugar Plum Fairy plays, but now I have. The stunt team should be commended for their work here, as should all the ballerinas who performed the close-up point work.

Recommendation

In the end, do we recommend Pretty Lethal? Yes, we would. Honestly, it is a solid action film that understands what it wants to do and achieves it with style. I am not sure it paints rural Hungary in the best light, but then you go five minutes out of a city in Australia, and you are in a horror film, so there is no moral high ground here.  

Have you watched Pretty Lethal? Let us know what you thought in the comments below. If you liked Pretty Lethal, we would recommend Predator: Badlands to you because it also understands the juxtaposition of action styles, and how they lead to a more engaging action environment.

By Brian MacNamara: You can follow Brian on Bluesky at @Tldrmovrev, when he’s not chatting about Movies and TV, he’ll be talking about International Relations, or the Solar System.

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Credits – All images were created by the cast, crew, and production companies of Pretty Lethal
Directed by – Vicky Jewson
Written by – Kate Freund
Music by – Paul Leonard-Morgan
Cinematography by – Bridger Nielson
Edited by – Richard Smither
Production/Distribution Companies – 87North Productions, Gulfstream Pictures, Amazon MGM Studios, & Amazon Prime.
Starring – Maddie Ziegler, Lana Condor, Iris Apatow, Millicent Simmonds, Avantika, Michael Culkin, Lydia Leonard, Uma Thurman, Julian Krenn, Miklós Béres, Krisztián Csákvári, Kate Freund, & Tamás Szabó Sipos
Rating – Australia: MA15+; United Kingdom: 15; United States: R