When I learned the concept of “Pretty Lethal”, in which a group of ballerinas face off against gun-wielding thugs, I had to admit it was ingenious. Ballet is a physically intensive practice, and why wouldn’t those leaps and jumps translate well to ass-kicking?

Beyond that, the movie has Uma Thurman, who is a touchstone in the life of anyone who watched Pulp Fiction in their twenties.

I’m also a sucker for clever tag lines, like “blood, sweat, and tutus.”

So I viewed “Pretty Lethal.” How did it fare?

I mean… not bad. The action scenes were fine and occasionally quite elegant. A lot of digital blood spattered. The plot, where the American ballet group (there’s five of them) break down in Hungary and end up in a kind of mob lair, made sense.

I was annoyed by the way the Christian character was portrayed as a complete imbecile (and I say that as an atheist.) Those kinds of easy potshots bug me. The constant infighting among the girls felt overdone. 

There’s a scene that also kind of undermines the movie’s whole argument that ballerinas can be lethal. At one point they face off with something like twenty thugs. But it’s played almost as a comedy, like something out of an 80s ninja movie where the bad guys attack one at a time as opposed to en masse. This is not how a real battle would work itself out.

It’s hard to avoid the Tarantino comparisons with Thurman’s presence and the general portrayal of violence as beauty in the film. Plus, viewers with observe a particular aspect about Thurman’s character that brings to mind Tarantino’s “Death Proof.”

Nonetheless, the film has a solid premise and a perfectly fine way to spend an hour and a half.