Pixie (2020)

Jack and I thought this lots of fun. It's a dark comedy, a thriller, a western, a road movie, a gangster pic; talky, but great, as Olivia Cooke, in the title role, leads a couple of young men into crime in their native Ireland. Ben Hardy as Frank and Daryl McCormack as Harland are her bumbling henchmen. Colm Meany, who seems to be in nearly every Irish movie, plays Pixie's stepfather, and Alec Baldwin makes an appearance in, oh, the second act as a dangerous priest.

Barnaby Thompson directs from a script by his son Preston Thompson and the music by Gerry Diver and David Holmes is supplemented by this list of songs.

A few interesting trivia factoids are that McCormack, who is Irish, gave accent tips to Cooke and Hardy, who are English. Barnaby's favorite movie is Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969), while Preston's is Something Wild (1986), no surprise given the humor and action in this one. I noted at the time that I enjoyed the photography by John de Borman.

Cooke was last blogged for Sound of Metal, Hardy for playing Roger Taylor (one of the members of Queen) in Bohemian Rhapsody, Baldwin for The Public, Holmes for The Laundromat, and de Borman for Made in Dagenham. I mentioned Meany in my post about Damned United, but did not profile him. So he was nominated for a Golden Globe for The Snapper (1993) which I loved, and his dozens of credits include The Commitments (1991) which I also loved and is part of the same series, Into the West (1992), Con Air (1997), and Get Him to the Greek. Daryl McCormack is new to me but not to his craft.

Barnaby Thompson has produced dozens of features and this is his third time directing, while his son Preston has written one other feature. This is Diver's feature composing debut after only three TV episodes.

Rotten Tomatoes' critics are minimizing this movie's worth, averaging 76%, though most appreciate Cooke's performance, and its audiences belittle it further at 66. Don't care. Liked it a lot.

We rented it on Apple/iTunes on August 4, 2021.