I’m a sucker for style.  Sure, you can catch my ear and spark my intellect with a good premise, but if you wow my eyes, you’ve got me hooked almost every time.  If you want bonus points in my book, then you can go for a mesh of varying styles, or shift rapidly within the narrative span.  For all of these reasons, I am extremely happy that I stumbled across the gem that is Violet & Daisy.

The film is about badass Violet (Alexis Biedel) and sensitive Daisy (Saoirse Ronan), two teenage assassins in New York City hopping from job to job in order to fuel their love for all things Barbie Sunday (Cody Horn, appearing on  billboards and posters only).  Upon finding out the latest Barbie Sunday concert has been cancelled, the two young girls decide that the latest Barbie Sunday dresses may suffice as a replacement, but they are also forced to face the fact they are broke.  As if by providence, their boss Russ (Danny Trejo) offers them a mysterious and sketchy hit job on an unnamed man (James Gandolfini) who recently robbed the rival hitman collective’s boss.  The two reluctantly accept the job, and upon encountering the man, are forced to face many truths about one another, themselves, and their situations (immediate and long term).

What starts off as pure exploitation and highly stylized action soon morphs into the realm of cynical noir and Tarantino-esque flashback emotional exposition.  As the cards are laid out on the table and the broader scope of the story unfolds, the film becomes wholly sincere and all-in on the emotional tension to the point that several threads of personal redemption are occurring at once.  Add that to the fact that the 3 characters we spend the most time with are constantly involved in psychological chess matches with one another, and anyone who is not wholly involved in the story is more than likely someone who is easily distracted.

Writer/director Geoffrey Fletcher seems to have caught quite a bit of flack in the wake of the film’s release for it being a Tarantino knock-off that was several years too late, but in my opinion, these may have been people whom had expectations coming in that were not met.  Taken at face value, the initial cartoonish nature and the subsequent radical shift of tone are all validated and accounted for... the two leads play their characters just young enough to sell themselves as teenagers, but also just calculated enough to sell themselves as remorseless (on a surface level at least).  And Fletcher dodges the bullet of violating the worst crime of all : stylistic overindulgence that bloats the run time.  The film clocks in at just under 90 minutes, which is perfect for the fact that it takes place largely within the confines of the apartment and a few rooms.

The camera loves Saoirse Ronan.  She looks like a million dollars in most every shot, and her thought processes are captured perfectly via her eyes and reactions.  Balanced against the more assertive performance given by Alexis Beidel, the pairing provide enough contrast for the space between them to be interesting, but enough chemistry for their banter to be entertaining and enjoyable.  James Gandolfini dials in his normally larger than life presence and manages to focus it, especially in the one on one scenes he has with Ronan and Beidel, showing a range that he unfortunately would only get to explore and display for a few more years before passing away.  Danny Trejo is enjoyable as always (the camera loves him about as much as it does Ronan, to be fair).  Marianne Jean-Baptiste nails her brief but imposing appearance as the danger that isn’t seen unless it chooses to be seen.