Eenie Meenie Miney Moe – Review

28th April 2014

Eenie Meenie Miney Moe, or #EM3, follows a group of Miami natives as they struggle through their day to day lives. The main focus is Raul (Andres Dominguez), a tow truck driver who falls for Nikki (Belkys Galvez). As these peoples lives intertwine, how long will it be before something goes wrong?

Firstly, this film is absolutely gorgeous. The visual style for a film of it’s type is outstanding, and you can tell that director Jokes Yanes (credited simply as Jokes) knows exactly what he’s doing with the camera (a real high point being the “Strip The Whip” sequence). The sound design also deserves recognition, helping capture, and sometimes create, the tone of scenes perfectly. Also, there isn’t a bad performance to be seen, but co-writer J. Bishop is a real stand-out as Russian tough-guy wannabe Vlad.

Other reviewers have commented that #EM3 is a “true” depiction of Miami, which is some thing I can’t really talk about here but I’ll take their word for it. This may well be the Mean Streets of 21^st century Miami, but as most people don’t live there we are reliant on character and plot to maintain our interest. Here is where the problems start, and it’s a big one.

There are some real character problems. It’s not that they are wicked or cruel, but they are underdeveloped and hardly introduced. It was hard to tell peoples relationships to one another and especially the motivations for their actions,

It isn’t that it’s glamorising the lifestyle, or encouraging the character’s behaviour, it is just not a very well put together story. In terms of it’s sound, visuals, editing etc, everything is amazing. In terms of thematic content and thought behind the characters, it is utterly terrible, which leads to one of two conclusions about the film. 1) An amazingly sophisticated satire on the banality of amorality, or 2) Someone with a great sense of how to put a film together but not how to find the parts in the first place. I’m siding with the latter.

This is glitter passing itself off as gold. It is beautiful to look at for a while, but if you look closer it is banal. It’s like rap music videos; 10 minutes and I’m fine, an hour and I’m bored and annoyed. This is the biggest shame, as what could have been a gut punch ending is spoiled by the first hour and a quarter losing me.

All this film needed was a little bit less thought put into what it was going to look like when things happened and more into why it was going to happen and what that would mean for the film’s overall meaning. I really wish it had because this feels like a wasted opportunity to make a really interesting film. Instead, it’s all flash and no bang.

I could be completely wrong. This could be a Paul Verhoeven-esque, ultra sly satire passing itself of as the very thing it is satirising, but even if it is that, it’s Showgirls, not Starship Troopers.

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