Hulu's 'Eenie Meanie' Is the Best Pete Davidson Film He Didn't Star In

One of the best shows you’ve never heard of — and truly, I mean 99.5 percent of television viewers have never heard of it — is called Wayne. It’s funny, touching, and downright badass, starring mostly unknowns alongside Mike O’Malley and Dean Winters in supporting roles. Originally a YouTube Premium series canceled after one season, it was briefly picked up by Prime Video. Lord Castleton convinced me to watch it, and I tore through it. Castleton promised to review it someday but got distracted by women’s soccer or something. You can only watch it on YouTube now, and if you can, you should.

The series was created by Shawn Simmons, who also wrote (and makes his directorial debut with) Eenie Meanie, a film that premiered on Hulu last week. Wayne is the reason I sought out Eenie Meanie, and like Wayne, I worry it’ll be unfairly buried and forgotten (though it seems to be doing well on Hulu). Eenie Meanie carries the same tragicomic humor, taste for violence, and bittersweet edge. It’s good, a rarity for a streaming movie.

Eenie Meanie also boasts a stronger cast: Samara Weaving, Karl Glusman, with supporting turns from Andy Garcia, Steve Zahn, Randall Park, Marshawn Lynch, and yes, Mike O’Malley again. Weaving plays Edie, a former getaway driver gone straight, pulled back in by her screw-up ex-boyfriend John, played by Glusman. Andy Garcia plays, well, an Andy Garcia type — a crime boss who threatens to kill John unless Edie takes on one last heist.

The heist is the getaway itself (you’ll see why), and it’s a good one. Simmons knows how to stage a car chase, and these are some of the best since Baby Driver, a film Eenie Meanie owes at least a small debt to.

But really, the movie is about Edie and John. John is the kind of charming disaster most of us know — the guy who sabotages himself and drags down everyone around him, yet is somehow irresistible. Think Pete Davidson or Jeremy Allen White. The problem is Glusman: he nails the dirtbag energy but misses the lovable part, and that’s a crack in the film’s foundation.

Even so, Simmons’s vision comes through. The film has a hyper-violent A Simple Plan vibe, but with more heart. It’s not a crowd-pleaser, which explains why it skipped theaters, and it’s derivative — but derivative of filmmakers we don’t see much of anymore (Tarantino, Edgar Wright). I’ll take a stylish heist with sharp dialogue and a messy, complicated relationship at its center. Samara Weaving is terrific, Randall Park has a delightfully Tarantino-esque cameo, and Marshawn Lynch does what he does best: steal scenes. It’s not great, but it’s good — solid streaming fare, a strong B in a sea of algorithm slop.

But also, check out Wayne.