Samara Weaving Only Bright Spot in Action Thrill Ride ‘Eenie Meanie’

Samara Weaving Only Bright Spot in Action Thrill Ride ‘Eenie Meanie’

By Lynn Venhaus

“Eenie Meanie” is the latest Quentin Tarantino-Guy Ritchie wannabe that is derivative of “Baby Driver,” “Drive,” “Fast and Furious” franchise and other pedal to the metal adrenaline rush movies heavy on blood-splattered action and light on logic and depth.

First-time director Shawn Simmons has assembled a recognizable cast headed by charismatic Samara Weaving, but the rest of the characters woefully lack any thoughtful development and are not interesting enough to spend an entire film with – and the main conflict is repellent.

 It’s as if this cast is plopped straight into a B-movie heist plot without any indication if they are either the good or the bad guys, mostly idiots and all caricatures. And each actor seems to be in a different movie.

Weaving is Edie, nicknamed Eenie Meanie, first shown as a glum, nervous teen with awful parents, who later endured a harsh life of foster homes and has a criminal past as a getaway driver.

Samara Weaving and Karl Glusman in “Eenie Meanie”

She’s a very good driver, nevertheless. After the opening scene, depicting how irresponsibly foolish her parents are (Steve Zahn, Chelsey Crisp), the film fasts forward to 14 years later.

Now a single bank clerk going to community college, her roommate is a longtime supportive friend Baby Girl (Kyanna Simone). Edie, spinning her wheels, has a loser boyfriend, among other tough-life dramas. Therefore, given choices, she usually goes with the wrong one.

John, the dippy bad luck-magnet boyfriend, is played by Karl Glusman. They are on-again, off-again, and she’d be much better off without him, because all indications are he’s a Bad Idea.

Gusman, part of ensemble casts in “The Bikeriders,” “Civil War,” and “Greyhound,” among others, tries to make John have some redeeming qualities, but the part is a screw-up, so…

He has screwed up a casino heist scheme by her old boss Nico (Andy Garcia wasted in tough-guy mode). Reluctantly, it’s Edie to the rescue – because she is always cleaning up everyone’s messes.

Marshawn Lynch is a getaway driver, so is Samara Weaving in “Eenie Meanie.”

She finds out she is pregnant, compounding the situation, so she helps the doofus avoid getting beaten to a pulp.  They take off on the run, squealing tires in zippy car chases where they mostly escape danger that keeps popping up.

The couple, who have some interesting exchanges, click on screen as they are pursued by an assortment of cliched quirky characters that are standard in these types of films.

Because of that, the screenplay is less thrilling because it’s a cluttered, clustered mishmash. Is she destined not to get anything she wants in life? That’s very sad.

Her new path is on hold while she deals with these peculiar, mostly unsavory, people. They are all in a never-ending toxic cycle – and why should we care? You feel for Edie because life has given her a big bag of lemons, and she can’t seem to make lemonade, no matter how hard she tries.

Randall Park is misused in a brief, persnickety role, while ex-pro running back Marshawn Lynch appears in a flashier but tiny part as another driver for Nico.  

Hopefully, Weaving will have a better choice of roles in her future. Without a fresh spin, “Eenie Meanie” can’t rise above its hackneyed plot and trite characters, unable to cross the finish line.

“Eenie Meanie” is a 2025 action-crime thriller directed by Shawn Simmons and starring Samara Weaving, Karl Glusman, Andy Garcia, Marshawn Lynch, Jermaine Fowler, Kyanna Simone, Steve Zahn, Chelsey Crisp, and Randall Park. It is rated R for violence/bloody images, pervasive language, nudity, some sexual material and brief drug use, and run time is 1 hour, 46 minutes. It started streaming on Hulu Aug. 22. Lynn’s Grade: C-.

‘Watcher’ Is a Creepy Thriller That Will Make You Close Your Curtains

‘Watcher’ Is a Creepy Thriller That Will Make You Close Your Curtains

By Lynn Venhaus
An uneasy feeling of dread grows and intensifies during the creepy “Watcher,” a competent thriller whose elements, while not exactly original, come together as a believable modern-day psychological horror show.

When her husband Francis (Karl Glusman) gets a job promotion that requires a move to Romania, Julia (Maika Monroe) accompanies him on the adventure – and plans to be supportive. A former actress, she walks around the streets of Bucharest, a stranger in a strange land, and attempts to keep busy to relieve her crushing boredom.

Only she has this uneasy feeling that she is being watched. There’s a guy (Burn Gorman) peeking outside nightly from an adjacent building. Is she imaging things or is she being stalked?

Shades of Hitchcock’s “Rear Window” and the proverbial female protagonist doubting herself – while men wonder if it’s her imagination or other stress triggers causing the hysteria.

Those condescending, patronizing looks that women know all too well.

Watcher with Maika Monroe

But we wouldn’t have 95 tension-filled minutes if everyone believed her, right? Maika Monroe, who effortlessly slips into the horror-genre as the pretty and smart blonde, toggles the fine line of sanity. We feel her nagging ‘What is wrong with me?’ just as we experience the unsettling surroundings from her point of view.

As an odd, lonely janitor named Weber, the versatile character actor Burn Gorman is able to project both sadness and strangeness at the same time. He does more with the thinly drawn part than likely was on paper.

In a stereotypical preoccupied husband role, Karl Glusman is nondescript as Francis, going through the motions of becoming increasingly perplexed, and alarmed, by Julia’s behavior.

It doesn’t help that the nightly news features a grisly neighborhood murder that may be the work of a serial killer. Nor that Julia doesn’t understand the language – she is taking lessons but feels even more lost when she’s surrounded by natives blithely chatting away. It all adds up to a few heebie-jeebies moments.

An interesting turn by Madalina Anea as the alluring, sophisticated neighbor Irina is a terrific addition to the claustrophobic setting.

Director Chloe Okuno, who wrote the story for the screen based on Zack Ford’s screenplay, gives a stylish, contemporary female spin on a classic old-school thriller, and it gets under your skin with her methodical approach.

Okuno employs a steady, deliberate pace and wisely chooses to play up the shadows and vary the lighting to make Julia’s solitary moments even more unsettling. Along with cinematographer Benjamin Kirk Nielsen, they frame the angular hallways, windows, staircases, and doors to build an eerie tone.

Shrewd editing by Michael Block provides well-earned jump scares and some jolting surprises just in case you were lulled into a ‘nothing’s wrong here’ feeling. Composer Nathan Halpern capitalizes and effectively adds to the spooky vibe with his memorable score.

Costume designer Claudia Bunea has made smart choices, especially for Julia, whom we can see change through her fashion choices as her misery grows. The walls seem to close in on her, and production designer Nora Dumitrescu’s selections help that with a drab Old-World setting.

But it all rests on Monroe’s shoulders to convince us of her out-of-kilter life, trying to adapt to a foreign country but feeling more isolated and alone than ever, and she splendidly comes through.

A nominee for the Grand Jury Prize at the 2022 Sundance Film Festival, “Watcher” takes a story with familiar beats and with fresh eyes, collaborators made it their own. Above all, it delivers what it promises – and is frightening in the process.

Maika Monroe

“Watcher” is a 2022 horror-thriller directed by Chloe Okuno and starring Maika Monroe, Karl Glusman, Burn Gorman, Madalina Anea. It is rated R for some bloody violence, language and some sexual material/nudity, and runs 1 hour, 31 minutes. It is in local theaters on June 3 and available for rental on June 21. Lynn’s Grade: B+