Brief Story Line
A group of ballerinas that consisted of the confident Bones (Maddie Ziegler - The Fallout, My Old Ass etc) the bitchy Princess (Lana Condor - Moonshot, To All the Boys movies etc), the religious Grace (Avantika - Mean Girls 2024 version, Tarot etc) and the sisters Zoe (Iris Apatow - The Bubble, Unstable TV series etc) & hearing impaired Chloe (Millicent Simmonds - A Quiet Place and its sequel) were invited to perform in Budapest. They went together with their teacher Thorna (Lydia Leonard - Last Christmas, A Woman of Substance TV series etc) to Hungary, but their trip was disrupted and they were forced to wait in a secluded inn quite far from the destination.
Unfortunately the hotel that was owned by Devora Kasimer (Uma Thurman - The Old Guard 2, Imposters TV series etc) was filled with criminals and the girls were somehow involved in altercation. Now all of them had to use their skills to fight for their lives and escape from the inn.
So how would the story conclude? You could find out in this movie.
End of Brief Story Line
When I read the brief synopsis of this movie, I already foresaw what it would be like. And it was indeed just as expected with a very simple plot which did not require any deep thinking. This was an example of a film that went straight to the point with brief introduction of the characters and enough background to know there was a bit of disharmony among the girls. It did not take long at all to get to the interesting part and from that moment onwards, it was continuous thrill and action.
Obviously the main attraction from this movie was its over the top action with maximum use of the girls' athleticism due to their years of ballet training (which was mentioned many times here to convince audience why they were able to do what they did). Despite some illogical parts which some audience might hate, I personally felt this to be fun and quite entertaining. It has fresh idea and the movie makers plus lead stars did seem to put up a lot of trainings to perform their part. The work done by the fight choreographer must also be applauded for creating lethal ballet moves.
From what I read, the film was supposed to enter production in 2023 but delayed to following year which led to several original cast exited and Maggie Ziegler, Avantika & Uma Thurman added. It was kind of surprising to me considering Ziegler is real dancer and I would have thought that she would be part of the original cast. I was also surprised to see Millicent Simmonds as she had grown up since last time I saw her. In addition to the names I mentioned above, there were few other additional people in support roles such as Miklós Béres (Baptiste TV series) as inn's manager Osip, Krisztián Csákvári (Rise of the Raven TV series) as Devora's son Artyom, Michael Culkin (Mortdecai, Candyman etc) as crime boss Lothar Marcovic, Tamás Szabó Sipos as Lothar's son Pasha and few others.
This movie was directed by Vicky Jewson whose first directorial debut was the 2006 Lady Godiva which won her several awards. It was written by Kate Freund who also played a part here as one of the inn's staff Sona. Critics were quite warm with this film as proven by its quite respectable rating at the time of my writing, though I am not sure yet about audience reaction as it was just released by Prime Video yesterday. It only has 88 minutes duration which was more than enough to give a pretty good time and did not have any mid or post end credit scene.
In the end this was a movie that might not be liked by all due to its likely unbelievable stunts and not exactly well written, but as an action thriller it was quite entertaining. With its violent fight scenes and sometimes rather comical, it was pure fun. So if you are in the mood for something like this, I think you would enjoy it as long as you do not expect a wonderfully written plot film with deep background story. I myself was pretty entertained, except for the final scene which was too hard to believe even if it was to give proper conclusion. But overall it was still something that I enjoyed.
Mike's movie moments rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars
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