Spoilers throughout.
The inn is run by Devora Kasimer (Uma Thurman), a legendary prima ballerina whose career ended in tragedy. The girls’ instructor, Thorna, accidentally witnesses Devora and a group of local mobsters (led by the bumbling, greasy Pasha) torturing a man. When Thorna tries to intervene, Pasha panics and shoots her dead, leaving the five girls as the only witnesses!
Instead of descending into standard horror, the film turns into a slapstick survival comedy, I reckon! The girls spend the second act darting through the corridors, rooms, nooks and crannies of the inn, hiding in dumbwaiters and using their athletic flexibility to squeeze into vents, while the Hungarian mobsters - portrayed as incompetent thugs - crash into walls and trip over furniture. Think 101 Dalmatians with Cruella de Vil and her dopey sidekicks!
In one of the dafter moments, Grace (the religious, green and gullible one) takes a psychedelic drug pushed on her by one of the thugs and spends much of the rest of the film tripping out. She sees 7ft-tall Nutcrackers, satanic red-eyed hoodlums and patterned items dancing before her eyes. The five girls end up running around the building much like one would expect in a Carry On film or a Benny Hill Special to evade the chasing Hungarians!
The film’s 'Pretty Lethal' title finally pays off in the third act when Bones (Maddie Ziegler) convinces the girls to stop running and ‘weaponise the dance’ - resulting in ludicrously staged, fully choreographed routines to take down the mobsters. They literally attach razor blades to the tips of their fingers and pointe shoes, using fouetté turns to slice the thugs’ throats and grand jetés to deliver flying kicks! It’s set to a high-energy orchestral remix that feels more like a music video than a fight!
While the other girls are fighting, Chloe (Simmonds, A Quiet Place) uses her lack of hearing (as both character and actress) to her advantage. While the mobsters are distracted by a blaring alarm she cannot hear, she silently sneaks behind them to set traps! It turns out Devora (Thurman) wasn't just a bystander - she invited the girls there as bait for the mob boss, Lothar (Pasha’s father). Lothar was the one who originally cut off Devora’s leg years ago because of a debt, ending her career (she reveals a prosthetic leg in the final act).
In the end, Devora doesn't actually do much fighting (or acting, for that matter - an easy payday for Thurman, though her Hungarian accent was fun), she simply traps Lothar and his men in the inn and sets off a massive amount of explosives, blowing herself and the mobsters to smithereens while the five girls escape in the mob's vehicles.
The film ends with the five girls - now bonded by blood and sequins - absurdly arriving at their competition just in time and performing a routine that incorporates their new ‘combat ballet’ style, winning the trophy while still covered in a suspicious amount of ‘theatrical’ red stains! All very silly, but good fun. Most of the film was set inside the inn, and here and there the cinematography was thoughtful and well-executed. British director Vicky Jewson (Lady Godiva) held it all together nicely.
The girls did a good enough job, clearly in on the fun and frolics of it all. By the end of the film, daft as it was, you’re kind of on board with them, rooting for them to win the day - which, of course, was never in question! There is some blood and gore here and there, but nothing that’s going to make anyone cringe. It feels very much like an X-rated St Trinian’s outing in Hungary. A must-see. Side-splitting laughs ahead!
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