Violet & Daisy

I found Violet & Daisy, written and directed by Geoffrey Fletcher, to be a frustrating film. Casting two young and nubile actresses as teenage contract killers would seem to be something for the trench-coat crowd, and indeed, the marketing for the film centers on this. I can think of a few other films that did this, such as the throwaway Sugar and Spice and the more lofty Spring Breakers. 

But Fletcher, who also wrote the somber Precious, pumps the film so full of pretentious psychology that it takes any fun out of it for pervs and instead it becomes a dreary slog.

The title pair are played by Alexis Bledel and Saorsie Ronan. We don't know how a pair of college-age girls became assassins, it's just understood. We see them mow down an apartment full of bad guys while dressed as nuns, hardly breaking a sweat. They then get a job to kill a guy who robbed money from important people. He made it very easy to be found, which any moviegoer should realize means something's up.

Indeed, the guy turns out to be James Gandolfini, in sad sack mode (he, of course, also plays vicious sociopath pretty well, too), who has cancer and wants to commit suicide by hit man. Of course, he doesn't expect young women, and the three end up spending the day together, as the girls can't bring themselves to kill him. There are a few subplots, such as Bledel going out to buy bullets and ending up in the middle of a robbery, and then there are some rival hit men, but the whole thing is a waste of time. The shooting scenes are a rip-off, and not a good one, of Quentin Tarantino.

Fletcher seems more attuned to the three-character drama he has going. Gandolfini, who was almost never bad, makes for compelling viewing, as he is pining for a daughter who has disowned them, and sees the girls, especially Ronan, as a replacement.

This isn't enough to sustain the film, which isn't shot very well, doesn't make a lot of sense (why would girls who are shown as indiscriminate killers in the first scene set up as softies later in the film) and other than Gandolfini, not very well acted. I liked Bledel very much on Gilmore Girls, but she's woefully miscast here (I read that she got the part after Carey Mulligan backed out, a good move).

And then there's the thing about their names being flowers. Bledel's old partner was named--wait for it--Rose. If I put that in a screenplay I'd cross it out almost immediately.

The film was shot in 2011 but sat on the shelf until 2013, understandably.