Netflix Original #9 - Deidra and Laney Rob a Train

Deidra and Laney Rob a Train

Director - Sydney Freeman

Writer - Shelby Farrell

Starring - Ashleigh Murray, Rachel Crow, Tim Blake Nelson, Sasheer Zamata, David Sullivan, Danielle Nicolet

"Shut up. You rob trains too so you need to stop whining."

Programming Note: This is not a "new" Netflix release. This has been on Netflix since March. If you've never heard of it, you weren't missing much.

Deidra and Laney is very similar to Rick Famuyiwa's 2015 film Dope. A black A-level high student is thrust into a life of crime that threatens their grades and way of life and goes to desperate lengths to come out of the whole ordeal successful while the film leans heavily on influences ranging from Wes Anderson to Quentin Tarantino to Spike Lee and ends up commenting on the societal influences leading black youth into the world of crime anchored by a terrific leading performance from an essentially unknown actor. The difference between Dope and Deidra and Laney is in the execution. While Dope is exhilarating breaking free of its influences to create one of the most memorable film experiences of the last few years (the Rewind Cue contains more style and substance than most movies have in their entire running time) Deidra and Laney uses the influences as crutches, propping up a mediocre story before ultimately settling into a mode than can best be described as Disney live-action children's film.

 In Deidra and Laney Rob a Train, Deidra (Murray) is the eldest daughter of the Tanner household shown to be holding things together for the family essentially raising her two younger siblings, Laney (Crow) and Jet (Lance Gray) while her mother crashes the family car and gets arrested holding up the legally distinct Best Buy knockoff she works at with a flat screen television. She's also a perfect student, the only one in her entire school, and her guidance counselor (Zamata) rests her hopes a transfer to a less terrible district on Deidra's shoulders pushing her to get into a good college. After a couple failed attempts to raise money for her mother's bail (among other bills) Deidra is inspired by a visit with her deadbeat father (Sullivan) who works at a train yard that the money she needs can be raising by stealing goods from the train and getting the local weed dealer to fence them for her so she ropes her sister into being her accomplish. Eventually local rail cop Detective Truman (Nelson) gets involved trying to track down the train thieves.

Shelby Farrell's script does very little that could be considered exciting with this premise and set up mostly opting for the safe route which may have been the best option considering how poorly the less conventional stuff goes. When not helping rob trains Laney is competing in a local teen beauty pageant seemingly against her wishes, costing her her seemingly only friend. This subplot appears to serve absolutely no purpose in the overreaching plot and only exists to provide shading and depth for a character who could sorely use some. That doesn't happen. Laney feels like she was a supporting character with no agenda of her own in an earlier draft of the script and revisions increased her role in the plot with no consideration given to her characterization until the final stages requiring a bunch of last minute filler stuff to be made up at the last minute. The twist late in the film attempts to mine emotional depth out of the mother's plight but bewildering comes completely out of nowhere and just leaves the audience with more questions.

Sydney Freeman has no voice of her own. Instead she uses other, established directorial tricks to try and create a movie of her own. The opening minutes try and interject some much needed energy into the film via music cues, post-production additions and voice over that Freeman quickly realizes she cannot hope to pull off for another 90 minutes so it is largely absent after that. Train robbing is reduced to a sub-par Wes Anderson knockoff. School drama is played as a sanitized version of Mean Girls. The climax of the film plays like a Disney Channel movie with the wily kids easily outsmarting the bumbling bad guy in kooky fashion and living happily ever after. It's quite shocking to see a movie that at least had built up some momentum and energy completely squander it all with a completely inert climax. The only fun touch that works is the title cards revealing the title of the movie one word at a time through objects existing in the scene. If only more of that inventiveness could have been used at literally any time throughout the film.

The saving grace of this movie is the cast. Specifically Ashleigh Murray and Sasheer Zamata. These two carry the film and make it watchable. Murray does a great job taking a character that could have easily been Henry from The Book of Henry and turning her into a dynamic, exciting character who is easy to root for. Zamata takes the archetype of fun, influential teacher and spins is by making her motives entirely self-serving while still keeping her entertaining. Her post credits scene is the best scene in the movie. The rest of the cast is solid except for Tim Blake Nelson who is incredibly disappointing as the villainous railroad cop. Nelson appears to have completely phoned this performance in. Though really, that's the story of Deidra and Laney Rob a Train, a couple of strong willed women carry a bunch of poor saps to mediocrity.

Schurmann Score - 5/10