Walk All Over Me Review (2007)
Director: Robert Cuffley
Writers: Robert Cuffley, Jason Long
Starring: Leelee Sobieski, Tricia Helfer, Lothaire Bluteau, Jacob Tierney, Michael Eklund
Release Date: May 13, 2008 (US)
Runtime: 1 hour 38 minutes

Continuing to review the films from my  Top 5 Leelee Sobieski list, we arrive at #5. Walk All Over Me is a different kind of entry than anything else I’ve reviewed in this series. The Leelee we have been watching in Joan of Arc, My First Mister, The Glass House, and Joy Ride is a teenager, often thrust into dramatic or intense situations that demand emotional weight. Walk All Over Me is something else entirely. This is a Canadian crime comedy noir that is a little scrappy, a little weird, and a lot of fun, and it features a slightly more mature Leelee in a role that is unlike anything else she did in her career.

The setup is the kind of thing that sounds better as a pitch than it has any right to be as a finished film, and yet here we are. Alberta (Sobieski) is a naive small town girl who flees to the city after losing money that belongs to some bad people. She moves in with her former babysitter Celene (Tricia Helfer), who has built a career as a professional dominatrix. When Alberta finds herself broke and desperate, she makes the brilliant decision to impersonate Celene and take her on one of her would be clients. This goes about as well as you would expect, as this client happens to be mixed up with some criminals convinced that he stole half a million dollars from them. From there it becomes a money hunt with assault, kidnapping, torture, and so forth.

What makes Walk All Over Me work is that it commits to its tone without ever losing its sense of humor. It’s not a movie that takes itself too seriously, and ultimately I think it’s a better movie because of it. There are some funny moments throughout, the kind of dark comedy that lands because the film is light enough touch to keep things from getting too heavy. It is also a brisk watch, the runtime barely cracks an hour and forty minutes and the film does not waste a minute of it. It gets in, tells its story, and gets out, which is a quality that more films could stand to have.

The chemistry between Sobieski and Helfer is the engine that drives the whole thing. Celene and Alberta are polar opposites; Celene is controlled and professional, and Alberta is a walking disaster. Watching them navigate their increasingly insane situation together is pretty entertaining. Helfer, best known for Battlestar Galactica, is terrific here. She plays Celene with a dry, exasperated energy that plays perfectly off Sobieski’s wide-eyed chaos, and their dynamic gives the film a heart that keeps you invested even when the plot gets a little loose.

And Leelee. As I’ve said before, I crushed hard on Leelee back around 1999-2002. By the time Walk All Over Me released in 2007, I had kind of forgot about her. At this point, she was 24, no longer the teen I crushed on (I’m younger than her by like three years). But damn, she’s very hot in this film (as is Helfer, which is no surprise). There is a confidence to her presence here that you can see developing from her earlier films. Alberta is a fundamentally different kind of role than anything Leelee did in her peak years; broader, more physical, more comedic, and she handles it with a natural ease that is fun to watch.

The critics were not kind to this one and it has a pretty rough Rotten Tomatoes score, but most of the criticism is aimed at the film itself rather than the performances, and on that front I think Sobieski gets more credit than the film’s reputation suggests she does.

Walk All Over Me is not a great film. The plot has holes in it and the criminal subplot gets a little tangled toward the end. But it is a fun one, and that’s all I really look for in a movie like this. It is a different side of Leelee Sobieski than we have seen in this series and worth watching for that alone but it’s a fun film worthing seeing at least once.

Walk All Over Me gets a three out of five: SUBSTANTIAL.

If you enjoyed this review, check out my review of Leelee Sobieski in Here on Earth. You can also check out my Top 5 Lee Sobieski Movies article, which houses links to all of my reviews of her films. And you can browse all of our movie reviews by clicking here.

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