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Sheroes Review
Image Credit: Paramount Global Content Distribution
Loading...Sasha Luss– Diamond
Isabelle Fuhrman– Ezra
Wallis Day– Ryder
Skai Jackson– Daisy
Jack Kesy– Jasper
Directed by Jordan Gertner
Screenplay by Jordan Gertner
Distributed by Paramount Global
Rated R for pervasive language, drug use, sexual content, nudity, and some violence
Runtime– 91 minutes
Sheroes is available in select theaters and On Demand and digital platforms starting June 23rd, 2023
Sheroes, written and directed by Jordan Gertner and available in select movie theaters and digital platforms starting June 23rd, 2023, is a new female centric action flick that’s also pretty funny. It’s also kind of ridiculous, but in a good way.
Sheroes stars Sasha Luss, Isabelle Fuhrman, Wallis Day, and Skai Jackson as Diamond, Ezra, Ryder, and Daisy, a best friend foursome who go to Thailand on a big hooha vacation. They can do this because Sasha is fabulously wealthy (her father is a big time movie producer who has homes and assets and whatnot all over the world) and everyone else seems to be self-employed (Ezra is an actress, Ryder is a sort of extreme sports enthusiast. She’s really into skateboarding. I don’t remember what Daisy’s job is but it isn’t a big deal because she, like the other three, is able to go on this trip at the drop of a hat). As soon as the foursome get on the plane they start partying: drinking, dancing, etc. Diamond also starts flirting with the plane’s new pilot Jasper (Jack Kesy). The plane eventually hits a bit of turbulence due to weather, the airport they planned on landing at closes because of that weather, and the plane ends up landing at a private airstrip. The foursome then heads to Diamond’s house, which is a massive mansion with a pool. The partying continues.
The foursome eventually gets bored partying alone at Diamond’s house and heads into the nearby town to party with people, both locals and tourists. After watching a fire staff twirling exhibition (that also includes people jumping rope that’s on fire) Daisy starts asking around for some cocaine. Daisy goes to an alley where she thinks she’s going to buy some. Instead of buying cocaine, Daisy and her friends are almost robbed at gunpoint only to be saved by pilot Jasper, who has been watching the friends since they landed. The friends then decide to go back to Diamond’s house to once again party alone. When they get to the house the friends find that their luggage has finally been delivered. Ryder’s bag, though, actually isn’t her bag (it looks like her luggage, though). Instead, Ryder’s bag is filled with drugs, specifically cocaine.
A bag full of cocaine?
The friends discuss what they should do with the bag. Should they get rid of it? Should they call the cops? Daisy convinces everyone that they should take one of the bags of cocaine and snort it. And so that’s what they do. A partying montage ensues.
The next day, Diamond, Ezra, and Ryder are in the midst of recovering from the previous night’s debauchery. They go to wake up Daisy and find that she’s not in her room and that apparently she’s been kidnapped by the people who actually own the cocaine. If the friends return the cocaine they will get Daisy back unharmed, or at least that’s what the message left by the kidnappers claims. Ezra and Ryder want to call the cops. Diamond, though, “knows” that they can’t call the cops. Diamond knows that they will have to find a way to rescue Daisy themselves.
Rescue Daisy themselves? From vicious drug runners? How the hell are they going to do that? Diamond tells her friends that she knows what to do. Ezra and Ryder believer her, sort of, and go along with her plan.
Now, in a “typical”/”realistic” action movie, the audience would learn at this point that the uber confident Diamond is secretly a black ops assassin or knows people who can help them (like a team of black ops assassins, or ex-black ops assassins who works as mercenaries). Sheroes, instead, wants the audience to believe that because Diamond’s movie producer father, who made a bunch of big deal action movies and in the process of making those action movies interacted with real life Special Forces operators and secret agents and whatnot, that Diamond knows what to do in this kidnapping situation (not to mention knows how to handle all sorts of weaponry). And that’s exactly what Diamond and her friends do. They handle the kidnapping situation, they come up with plans to take on the vicious drug runners who have kidnapped Daisy, and they kill a bunch of people in the process. Is any of it believable? Does it seem plausible, even in the world presented in the movie? The answer you come to while watching is what will determine how much you end up liking the movie. It’s either “Yeah, okay, I can buy this premise” or “This is such bullshit. There’s no way any of that would happen.”
Me? I had a hard time believing that anything the friends do after they find out Daisy has been kidnapped was in any way plausible, even in the world created for the movie. I don’t mind the idea of three friends banding together and using their smarts and determination to beat the odds. But the daughter of a movie producer, who has no military or law enforcement training, somehow develops the necessary skills to take on drug runners because her father made action movies? And that daughter’s friends, who also don’t have military or law enforcement experience, also manage to suddenly develop the necessary deadly skills to kill heavily armed drug runners without breaking much of a sweat? And the movie isn’t a full on comedy?
Nah, that’s bullshit. Even for an action movie that’s bullshit.
But that reality doesn’t mean Sheroes isn’t entertaining. It is. Sheroes is a slick, well-made, exciting action movie. The movie’s story is just pure nonsense. The thing that saves Sheroes is its cast. Sasha Luss, Isabelle Fuhrman, and Wallis Day make a terrific team that you can’t take your eyes off of. Yes, it helps that all three women are gorgeous, but there’s also a sense of fun that vibrates off of them when they’re onscreen together. The stuff they do is absurd but you can’t help but want to watch them do it. They also know how to make the script’s prolific profanity funny and charming instead of grating and boring. You can tell that Diamond, Ezra, and Ryder have been friends for a long time and they enjoy busting one another’s balls. It’s a beautiful thing to experience.
Writer/director Gertner, in his directorial debut, knows how to keep things moving. Gertner also knows how to stage generally exciting action and fight scenes, which is enhanced by the movie’s Thailand location. Even if you’ve seen similar action and fight scenes in other movies, odds are good that you’ve never seen them in exactly the same way as you see them in Sheroes. It will be interesting to see if the action on display in Sheroes generates more and bigger action movie work for Gertner. Based on what he manages to do in Sheroes, it’s easy to see him in the running for bigger, more elaborate action movies. Gertner has the necessary chops.
It’s also easy to see Sheroes becoming a franchise of some sort. Luss, Fuhrman, Day, and Jackson have the necessary team charisma to appear in at least one more adventure together. There are always more shenanigans to get into, more exotic locations to get in trouble in, and more bad guys to mow down with machine guns and grenades and whatnot. Sheroes is what the recent Charlie’s Angels reboot so desperately wanted to be and failed at.
See Sheroes. It’s absurd. It’s ridiculous. It’s also fun as hell, with a main cast that you want to spend time with, even if you don’t believe for one second that any of them can do what we see them do in the movie. Bring on Sheroes 2!
See Sheroes. See it, see it, see it! Sheroes is available in select movie theaters and via on demand and digital platform starting June 23rd, 2023.
So what do we have here?
Dead bodies: Around 30
Explosions: Multiple, both big and small.
Nudity?: Yes, briefly.
Doobage: A nice opening titles sequence and a cool theme, yoga, four friends taking a trip to Thailand, private plane hooey, serious alcohol consumption, a penis shaped glass bong, a partying on the plane montage, a secret lesbian relationship, attempted flirting, turbulence, multiple partying montages, fireworks, squirt gun to the face, attempted cocaine buying, attempted street robbery, a snorting cocaine montage, people drinking booze while underwater, an off screen kidnaping, bamboo jail hooey, a panic room filled with guns, a computer, and a 3-D printer, flowers in a box, IPad hooey, venomous spider hooey, gun shooting practice, a big chase, skateboard hooey, a rival kidnapping plan, a date, sex, an underground MMA fighting ring, kidnapping, interrogation, chair bondage, ball gag hooey, a stripper dance montage, jungle hooey, multiple explosions, grenade hooey, man on fire stunt, attempted strangulation, neck stabbing, sniper hooey, exploding factory, a Jeep, multiple spider bites, a final battle, and the prospect of a sequel.
Kim Richards? None.
Gratuitous: A hot blonde chick doing yoga, Sasha Luss, Isabelle Fuhrman, “This is such fucking bullshit,” a hidden lesbian relationship, sudden life confessions, Thailand, a yellow Porsche, a driving montage, a fire staff twirling exhibition, a jump rope that’s on fire, attempted cocaine buying, a “doing cocaine” montage, hot babes in bikinis and whatnot, a Taken homage, the Golden Triangle, laser sight hooey, skateboard hooey, local news on TV, a “coming up with a plan” montage, sex, underground MMA fighting, a woman threating to cut off a man’s penis with giant sheers, a hero hiding under a moving vehicle, a jungle drug factory, LAWS rocket hooey, slow motion exploding Jeep, and the prospect of a sequel.
Best lines: “This is such fucking bullshit!,” “Fuck you and your pussy board!,” “Nice luggage, Ryder,” “Motherfucking Thailand!,” “Wow, you girls sure know how to trash a plane,” “This is fucking amazing,” “Forget drinks, let’s find some blow!,” “Oh, fuck you, assholes, you’re coke dealers, not missionaries,” “Who are you, Jasper?,” “You fuck someone’s Dad once and suddenly you’re a fucking pariah,” “Morning, fuckers!,” “This is not a fucking film!,” “This is seriously nuts,” “Think it’s going to be hot on the roof?,” “Follow the plan, we get Daisy back,” “I’ve never lost in anything,” “Fuck you! Because I’m a girl I’m Wonder Woman?,” “Jesus fucking Christ!,” “Snip! Snip!,” “Finally, we meet. Fuck you,” “I’ve got the cocksucker,” “Hasta la vista, bitches,” “Daisy, it’s time for a little payback,” “You almost fucking got away with it,” “Was this, like, the best girls trip ever or what?,” “Ladies, to an inspiring group of heroes. Heroes? Fuck that! We are Sheroes!,” and “I got one question. Does anyone got any blow?”
