Netflixable? French “Angels” without “Charlie?” “Wingwomen”

For everyone who has been waiting waiting waiting for a dark and glib French take on “Les anges de Charlie,” here it is, a flippant and somewhat blood-spattered star vehicle for four French leading ladies titled “Wingwomen.”

Director and star Mélanie Laurent picked up on the “La Femme Nikita/Thelma & Louise” elements of the comic book by  Jérôme Mulot and Bastien Vives and ran with it for this long and sleek French exercise in action heroines with attitude.

It’s a heist picture that skips over almost everything about the “heists,” a thriller content that always feels as though the stakes are absurdly low. Its trigger-woman, Alex (Adèle Exarchopoulos) shoots down drones with a pistol and downs “civilians” with her never-misses tranquilizer dart gun.

But when it comes to revenge, it’s “full metal jacket” time — kill-shots galore, delivered by a silenced sniper rifle. And when it comes to a finale, well, no climax would be complete without a throw-away-the-last-whiff-of-integrity anti-climax.

We meet Carole (Laurent, of “Inglourious Basterds,” “Beginners” and “Now You See Me”) as she’s finishing a Swiss “job.” She escapes the killer drones thanks to her easily-distracted, always-lovelorn wingwoman/wheelwoman/trigger-woman (Exarchaopolous was in “Blue is the Warmest Color”).

Distracted Alex can’t hit her droning targets until bestie Carole tells her to “think of Karim,” the guy who just dumped her by text.

So yeah, it’s like that.

They’re in the employ of The Godmother, a ruthless, sunglassed tyrant (screen legend Isabelle Adjani of “Camille Claudel”) who likes taking meetings in an emptied revival house cinema.

“You’re my masterpiece,” she tells Carole, which isn’t a compliment. It’s a threat. Carole is ready to “get out.” And that’s not allowed. She doesn’t mention the fact that she’s just found out she’s pregnant, because it wouldn’t help. Godmother is ruthless.

Attempts to lay low in a stealth-tech forest hideaway end in mayhem, so there’s nothing for it but to agree to that “final job.”

They’ll need to consult planner/go-between Abner (Philippe Katherine). Alex will want to flirt with the Corsican gun-dealer/supplier (Félix Moati) of their Corsican art gallery heist.

“I just love...penetration.”

And they’ll need a better getaway driver than Alex. The something and someone Alex comes to resent is named Sam (Manon Bresch).

As a director, Laurent and her screenwriters choose to skip over many of the conventions of the genre — “training” aspiring Formula 1 driver Sam to shoot and handle herself on a “job,” the “jobs” themselves.

The one heist we see has a film production element to it, which is lazy and adds nothing to the proceedings.

The idea here is to focus on the fights and the zingers. Alex gets all the best lines, such as when a possible “menage a trois” turns into a brawl.

“Wanna take a break?” she taunts her foe (in French or dubbed into English). “Wanna call your mommy?”

The eccentric touches added to the characters are kind of fun, but even they have a played-out air. Tightly-executed or not, there’s a blandness to the action beats, a dullness to the messaging (“It’s not what you do, it’s who you do it with.”) and a general disconcern with logic — a stand-off over payment for their opening act job ends with Carole inexplicably leaving without that payment — and a disinterest in wrapping this up with a decent drop the mike moment.

It’s slick and scenic and the stars wear their black robber unitards with French elan. But “Wingwomen” never adds up to the sum of its parts, no matter how many are added to it.

Rating: TV-MA, violence, nudity, smoking, profanity

Cast: Mélanie Laurent, Adèle Exarchopoulos, Manon Bresch, Philippe Katerine and Isabelle Adjani

Credits: Directed by Mélanie Laurent, scripted by Cédric Anger and Christophe Deslandes, inspired by the comic book by Jérôme Mulot and Bastien Vives. A Netflix release.

Running time: 1:55

About Roger Moore

Movie Critic, formerly with McClatchy-Tribune News Service, Orlando Sentinel, published in Spin Magazine, The World and now published here, Orlando Magazine, Autoweek Magazine
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