Vicky Jewson’s “Pretty Lethal” is a film that embraces the intersection of dance and action choreography. How many times have critics and filmmakers compared the two, noting that the fight sequences in films like “John Wick” or “The Killer” have a balletic quality that makes them both, graceful and brutal at the same time? Applying that concept directly to the world of dance is a clever idea on the part of writer Kate Freund and director Vicky Jewson but that’s all that there is to hold onto in this disappointing flick, a movie with one banger of an action sequence surrounded by thin characters, flat plotting, and even a boring climax.

“Pretty Lethal” is the story of a ballet troupe overcoming infighting between its strong personalities to go to an international show in Budapest. On their way through the foreboding Hungary countryside, their bus breaks down, sending them out into the woods seeking shelter. That’s where they come upon a lavish old Hungarian building called the Teremok Inn, which looks like the headquarters for all the swarthy criminals in the area, given drinks and entertainment by a retired ballet dancer herself named Devora Kasimer (Uma Thurman). It seems like one of those places with danger in the air, but Jewson has trouble making it feel like anything more than a hollow set populated by personality-less baddies. And then one of the villains given a few lines of dialogue shoots the troupe’s chaperone in the head in the middle of the room.

The girls are rushed into the basement while everyone figures out what to do next. The de facto leader of the clan, a street-smart runaway named Bones (MVP Maddie Ziegler, who could easily carry a film like this on her own someday and might have made a more interesting film out of being the solo protagonist of this one) realises before everyone else that they’re in deadly trouble. They’re witnesses, and they don’t make it through a movie like this one. The other girls include Bones’ nemesis Princess (Lana Condor), the Deaf Chloe (Millicent Simmonds), her protective sister Zoe (Iris Apatow), and the conservative Grace (Avantika).

It’s almost shocking how little the girls are given to do beyond live up to their thinnest character descriptions. The Bible-quoting Grace is given drugs early, forcing her into barely understanding what is going on as she tries to hold onto her values; Princess reveals she can be as tough as Bones because, of course, she can. Worst of all, Simmonds is introduced as an interesting character who will play a pivotal role (and the actress is promisingly great with how little she’s given), separated from the others as she flirts with a cute boy at the inn, but there’s absolutely no payoff to that set-up. It’s infuriating.

“Pretty Lethal” is a film rife with solid wind-ups but almost no follow-through. Even Thurman’s character is given a rich back story of a ballet career derailed by the crime lord father of the thug who incites the action of the night with a gunshot, but it ends up running too parallel to the troupe’s story instead of really interacting with it. Almost criminally, Thurman isn’t even given an action scene.

There’s also a surprising amount of brutality in “Pretty Lethal,” a film that spends a crazy amount of time with a doctor/cleaner who specialises in dismembering bodies so they can’t be identified by the authorities, whether they’re dead yet or not. There are times when what should be escapism approaches “Hostel” levels of viciousness, just one of the many issues with a film that seems incapable of settling on a tone.