A gritty revenge thriller polished to a distracting gleam, Girls Against Boys opens with an attention-grabbing scene featuring an underwear-clad woman, a handcuffed policeman and a carelessly wielded gun, before cutting to a lecture on the controversial artist Aida Makoto and his exploitation of misogynistic stereotypes. That’s pretty much the film in miniature. After meek coed Shae (Danielle Panabaker) is dumped by her married boyfriend and raped following a drunken night of clubbing, her coworker Lu (Nicole LaLiberte, the opening scene’s cop-abuser) nudges her into a kill-crazy, man-slaying weekend. Writer-director Austin Chick throws in echoes of Abel Ferrara’s feminist grindhouse classic Ms. 45, but the provocation feels hollow and the stylish direction—filled with pensive slo-mo—just slows things down.
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