To avenge her mother’s death, Pixie masterminds a heist but must flee across Ireland from gangsters, take on the patriarchy, and choose her own destiny.
Colm Meaney has always been one of my favorite Irish actors. From his early performances in “The Commitments” and especially “The Snapper,” he has always managed to infuse each performance with seriousness when called for, but mostly a mischievous, quintessential wittiness that very few actors possess. Here, while he plays a supporting character, he still manages to bring those two qualities to life onscreen, while Alec Baldwin appears to be having a blast playing an Irish gangster priest, coupled with a fake “Oirish” accent. Olivia Cooke, an English actress, plays the titular character Pixie, and actually exudes a believable Irish dialect, putting Mr. Baldwin to shame for not even appearing remotely interested in authenticity.
Pixie (Cooke) lives on the west coast of Ireland. Her mother died a few years earlier and she is ready to leave the Emerald Isle and move to San Francisco where she plans on studying art. Her stepfather, Dermot (Colm Meaney), is a gangster, and when she hears of a shipment of his drugs coming into town through the local church, she plans on intercepting the deal so she can take off with the money herself and leave Ireland in her rearview mirror. She recruits a local lad Fergus (Fra Fee), telling him that they will both head off into the sunset but then her ex-boyfriend Colin (Rory Fleck Byrne) comes back into town and screws everything up.
When two other locals, Frank (Ben Hardy) and Harland (Daryl McCormack), unwittingly get caught up in Pixie’s botched plan, she pretends to like them, in the hopes they will help her get everything sorted out but Dermot is made aware of her attempts to steal his drugs and money, and in the ensuing chaos, she accidentally involves Dermot’s old nemesis, Father Hector McGrath (Alec Baldwin), a rival gangster looking for his share of the drugs. While on the run, Pixie formulates a new arrangement that will have Dermot and his men face off against Hector and his racketeering nuns and priests but she, Frank, and Harland get caught in the middle and must now fight for their lives, if they are ever to see San Francisco.
After Tarantino delivered “Pulp Fiction” to the world in 1994, there were endless copycats that tried desperately to cash in on his unique and signature cinematic style, films like “Things to Do in Denver When You’re Dead,” “2 Days In The Valley,” and “The Way of the Gun,” and while they managed to capture some of Tarantino’s visual aesthetics, overall, they came nowhere close to achieving the same level of success. “Pixie” feels like a late entry into this genre, and like the aforementioned titles, fails to capture anything closely resembling Tarantino’s masterpiece. While director Barnaby Thompson has most certainly assembled an impressive roster of actors, sadly, the lack of plausible story exposition and character development is its downfall. In the end, the movie is all flash and no substance, and while a film can look terrific, that one facet alone is not enough to salvage it.
Now available on DVD from Paramount Home Entertainment
