Pixie

I lost count of how many people got shot, I think it was 4 before the opening credits, that's why it's a 15 The comedy does fit in with the violence and drugs, somehow. There is some spectacular Irish scenery, that made it worth watching in the cinema. Overall, it's fun but a bit mixed up. It's not terrible.

You know sometimes when you see a trailer you think "oh yeah - this is a must see"! The trailer for "Pixie" (see below) was one such moment for me. A spaghetti western set in Sligo? With Alec Baldwin as a "deadly gangster priest"? Yes, yes, yes!

In a remote Irish church, two Irish priests and two "visiting Afghan Catholic priests" are gunned down by a couple of losers in animal masks - Fergus (Fra Fee) and Colin (Rory Fleck Byrne) - over a stash of MDMA worth a million Euros. This reignites a simmering gang war between the gangster families of Dermot O'Brien (Colm Meaney) and Father Hector McGrath (Alec Baldwin). Linking everything together is Pixie (Olivia Cooke), O'Brien's daughter, who has a magnetic effect on men. She is somehow subtly the woman controlling everything going on.

Drawn into the mayhem are hapless teens Frank (Ben Hardy) and Harland (Daryl McCormack) - both of who have the hots for Pixie - who embark on a wild and bloody road-trip around southern Ireland.

Key to your belief in the ridiculous story is that the character of Pixie has to have the beauty and charisma to utterly enslave the poor men she crosses paths with: taking a "Kalashnikov to their hearts" as drug dealer Daniel (Chris Walley) puts it. And Olivia Cooke - so good in "Ready Player One" - absolutely and completely nails the role. I'm utterly in love with her after this movie, and she's thirty years too young for me! There's a sparkle and a mischief behind her that reminded me strongly of a young Audrey Hepburn.

Supporting her really well are the "Harry and Ron" to Cooke's Hermione - Ben Hardy (Roger Taylor in "Bohemian Rhapsody") and Daryl McCormack. And the trio make a truly memorable "love triangle". A bedroom scene manages to be both quietly erotic and excruciatingly funny in equal measure.

The direction here is by Barnaby Thompson, who's better known as a producer with the only previous movie directing credits being the St Trinian's reboots in 2007/09. Here he manages to channel some of the quirky camera shots of the likes of Guy Ritchie and Matthew Vaughn and mix them with the black humour and comedic gore of Quentin Tarantino. The taciturn hit-man Seamus (Ned Dennehy) typifies the comedy on offer, using a Land Rover to drag a poor victim round in a figure of eight on a soggy moor to make him talk!

Where I think the movie wimps out a bit is in an ecclesiastical shoot-out finale. Vaughn's "Kingsman: The Secret Service" set the bar here for completely outrageous and out-there church-based violence. Here, the scene is both tame by comparison (not necessarily a bad thing!), but also highly predictable. Given this is supposed to be "a plan", none of it feels to be very well thought-through! As such, belief can only be suspended for so long.

The visuals and music are fab. The cinematography - by veteran John de Borman - makes the west Ireland coast look utterly glorious and the Irish tourist board must have been delighted. There are also some beautifully-framed shots: a boot-eye (US: trunk-eye) perspective is fabulous, and there's a gasp-inducing fade-back to Pixie's face following a flashback. And a shout-out too to the editing by Robbie Morrison, since some of the plot twists are delivered as expert surprises.

The music - by Gerry Diver and David Holmes - is also spectacularly good at propelling the action and maintaining the feel-good theme.

Where I did have issues was with the audio mix. I'm sure there were a bunch of clever one-liners buried in there, but the combination of the accents (and I've worked in Northern Ireland for 20 years and am "tuned in"!) and the sound quality meant I missed a number of them. I will need another watch with subtitles to catch them all.

Thanks to ANOTHER WRETCHED LOCKDOWN in the UK this was my last trip to the cinema for at least a month: I was one of only four viewers in the "Odeon" cinema for this showing. Because it's a great shame that so few people will get to see this (at least for a while), since its the sort of feelgood movie that we all need right now. Slick and utterly entertaining, I'll quietly predict that this one will gain a following as a mini-cult-classic when it gets to streaming services. Recommended.

(For the full graphical review, please check-out bob the movie man on the web or One Mann's Movies on Facebook. Thanks.)

I sort of liked parts of this movie, and was a bit let down by the holes in it.

Olivia was breezy and cool but a lot of what happened to her seemed like good luck, but the film made it out to be clever calculation. I had to suspend quite a bit more disbelief than I was comfortable with.

There were some funny and clever plot points here. Colin Meaney's step dad character was nice, although he was playing a character we've seen him do a lot.

Not sure where they were going with the cross dressing forced bi thing but, it was mildly funny, and would have had more impact if it wasn't just some rudderless character inflicting herself on an admittedly already crooked world. 2 Wrongs don't make a right here either.

In-between the handful of clever plot ideas there were a lot of bog standard tropes and this is probably why this movie wasn't more successful. The holes really did drag it down and make it hard to root for anyone.

I really like a lot of the actors and components of this film but the whole was less than the sum of its parts and I left feeling conflicted.

I wanted to love it, but, it fell short of that.

Pixie is a simply to follow film. The three lead actors give great performances. I'd not watched the trailers before going in so seeing Alec Baldwin was a pleasant surprise, however he is very underused, only showing up late on then returning for the finale. Olivia Cooke is great as Pixie, her Irish accent very rarely slipping. The film is very well directed, the only place is falls down is towards the end the characters begin to make silly decisions and it becomes very predictable. However this film flows along very well at 1 hour 33 minutes and supplies some good laughs here and there, as well as utilising the stunning scenery.

If Quentin Tarantino and Guy Richie had a love child, this is it. I enjoy both these directors/writers and enjoyed this comic crime romp. No clever editing, just a fun tale well told.