Title: Violet & Daisy

Opens: June 7, 2013

Two ironies make their presence felt in Geoffrey Fletcher’s “Violet & Daisy.” The more believable one is that a black dog is named Whitey. The other is that two cute girls, ages 18 and 17, who look like the sort that any parent would love, are serial killers, guns for hire who in the story’s leading incidents are motivated by the wish for money to buy expensive dresses. Geoffrey Fletcher, who won an Oscar for his screenplay of “Precious,” is not on an upward trajectory with his current film. Not only is “Violent & Daisy,” a mostly three-person chamber piece, suited more for the stage, but the dialogue between Violent and Daisy and between the two girls and a depressed man dying from pancreatic cancer is banal. Nor does it help that the movie lacks suspense.

It does, however, demonstrate some imagination in its surreal format, featuring one bold dream sequence that is its highlight and conversations that could not in any formal way be called realistic. The title characters, Violet (Saoirse Ronan) and Daisy (Alexis Biedel) are seen in the first of ten chapters in a Tarantino-like scene, both dressed as nuns delivering a pizza but whose guns make for a customer not likely to order again. (What’s the thing about nuns delivering pizza, anyway)? When given an assignment to take out a gangster in a dilapidated apartment, they find the unnamed victim (James Gandofini) welcoming their visit—which makes the hit girls wonder whether it’s ethical is waste a fellow who would like nothing more than to make their job easy.

Occasional shoot-ups notwithstanding—there’s a neat one that results in the killing of four hit-men who did not reckon that their victim had company—“Violet and Daisy” is more a sentimental comedy-drama that uses both the Gandolfini character and a godlike figure (Marianne Jean-Baptiste) to examine what had heretofore been unexamined lives. More astute, however, is the would-be victim, who is already aware that his eagerness to die, his deeply-felt depression, is a product of his daughter’s rejection and hence the loss of what everyone knows is the key to happiness: a loving family.

If the killers get away with their deeds, it’s OK since we understand that the whole scenario is but a fable, one helped by well-known Broadway designer Patrizia Von Brandenstein’s production design and some extreme close-ups by photographer Vanja Cernjul.

Not Yet Rated. 88 minutes © 2013 by Harvey Karten, Member, New York Film Critics Online

Overall – C+