There’s a moment in Shawn Simmons’ Eenie Meanie when Edie, played with feral grace by Samara Weaving, stares down a muscle car like it’s an old lover she’s trying to forget. The engine hums. The past beckons. And the film, for all its genre-bending ambition, begins to gallop. In his directorial debut, Simmons doesn’t just want to make a car heist movie. He wants to make a car heist movie that aches, jokes, and remembers its own bruises.
Once the teenage wheelwoman of a ragtag robbery crew, Edie now works at a bank and pretends to be normal. Her ex-boyfriend John (Karl Glusman, all twitch and charm) is the kind of man who can’t even wait in a parked car without starting a bar fight. When he gets in trouble with Nico (Andy Garcia, delightfully oily), Edie is forced back behind the wheel. The heist is simple: steal a car, steal some cash, save the man. But the film knows that nothing is ever simple when love is involved.
The title Eenie Meanie plays out— a nursery rhyme turned elegy. Edie’s nickname, given by her father (Steve Zahn, tender and tragic), becomes a mantra for survival. She’s the one picked, the one chosen, the one who drives. The film leans into this with comic touches—Jermaine Fowler’s Chaperone and Marshawn Lynch’s Perm Walters offer absurd wisdom and chaotic energy—but it never loses sight of Edie’s emotional arc. She’s not just a driver. She’s a woman trying to rewrite her own story.
As a car driver movie, Eenie Meanie swerves away from testosterone and lands in something more intimate. The chase scenes are few but kinetic, and Simmons stages them with a kind of bruised poetry. Edie’s driving isn’t just skill—it’s memory, defiance, grief. The fact that she’s a woman in a role usually reserved for men isn’t treated as a novelty. It’s treated as truth. She drives because no one else can. She drives because no one else will.
The plot, while familiar, succeeds in its emotional layering. Edie’s realization that John cannot change is the film’s quiet triumph. Simmons doesn’t rush it. He lets her learn it slowly, through missed calls, broken promises, and one final betrayal. The heist is chaotic, funny, and improbably staged, but it works because it’s not about money. It’s about Edie choosing herself.
The film’s themes—loyalty, identity, escape—are well presented, if occasionally muddled. There are moments when Simmons tries to juggle too much: comedy, action, drama, trauma. Not all of it lands. Some scenes feel overwritten, others undercooked. But the film’s heart—Edie’s journey—is never lost. Even when the plot stumbles, the character remains clear.
Samara Weaving is the film’s engine. Her sharp, wounded, and often hilarious performance gives Edie a kind of comic dignity, a refusal to be reduced. Karl Glusman’s John is frustratingly effective; you want to punch and hug him simultaneously. The supporting cast, especially Randall Park and Kyanna Simone, brings texture and surprise. Elle Graham as young Edie adds a haunting echo to the film’s emotional core.
Simmons’ direction is ambitious and uneven. He has a flair for action and a love for character, but sometimes the pacing falters. The film wants to be everything—a genre romp, a character study, a feminist anthem. It doesn’t always succeed, but when it does, it sings. The final chase, with Edie behind the wheel and the city unraveling around her, is pure cinematic joy.
Eenie Meanie is hit and miss, but when it hits, it hits hard. It’s a film that remembers its ghosts, laughs at its scars, and drives like hell toward something better. It’s not perfect, but it’s alive. And in a genre that often forgets to feel, that’s worth the ride.
Grade: B+. Streaming on Hulu.
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