Roller derby chick flicks aren't novel. I have fond memories from the '70s of catching endless TV replays of The Kansas City Bomber, with its vaguely kinky girl-on-girl aggression (it starred Raquel Welch, who wasn't quite an actress but knew how to get mad). So I was primed to see Whip It, the first movie directed by Drew Barrymore, with Ellen Page as a 17-year-old small-town Texas high school student (Page, with her elfin girlishness, will probably be playing 17-year-olds when she's 37), who lies about her age in order to join the Hurl Scouts, a roller derby team based in Austin. Barrymore is such a nice, sweet person that you may wonder how she could possibly have directed a movie about demon women on wheels whose primary athletic activity consists of bashing each other's bodies. Here's how. Whip It is a nice, sweet roller derby movie. There's no edge to it,...
- 9/14/2009
- by Owen Gleiberman
- EW.com - The Movie Critics
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