Kill or Be Killed - Kill film review

I had high hopes for this Hindi action film billed as the most violent film to ever be produced in India. Sadly, it gets bogged down in a cheesy neo-Romeo & Juliet love story-meets-Under Siege (you know the plot: villains hijack a large commercial vehicle only to discover that a badass military dude happens to be on said vehicle. Augmenting this all-too-familiar tale is extremely cheesy dialogue (if we are to believe this film as an accurate representation of modern India, then men call each other “bro” way too much over there). Toss in an an all-too-obvious (and common) thread about the caste system and inequality in India to top it all off. 

None of this would raise an eyebrow if the film actually tweaked the formula, but it fails to elevate the containment action film, in this case the ever-popular “stuck on a train” sub-genre.

To be fair, there are some brilliant moments of gonzo ultra violence, but they all too often get lost in the thin storyline, corny verbal repartee, and one-dimensional characters. Sure, there is some bristling action, grimace inducing gore (a scene involving a toilet is sufficiently jarring and another utilizing Zippo lighter fluid is somewhat inspired), but also moments of missed opportunity (the kill shot using a fire extinguisher ends up fizzling out).

The film rolls along at a decent enough pace until the 40-minute mark where it goes off the rails for a good 30-minutes. But then it looses steam.

It doesn’t help that one fight scene takes place in almost total darkness, which is a complete cop-out. It also doesn’t help that the final boss is ultimately lame and our hero dispatches him with ease. 

In a year that has been filled with revenge oriented action films—Monkey Man and Boy Kills World, specifically—this one falls a bit short (though I found it slightly better than BKW).

Honestly, I kept waiting for the cast to break out into an item number in the tight confines of the train aisles. Now that woulda been killer!

Killing Them With...- Kinds of Kindness film review

After two semi-mainstream, over-the-top comedies—The Favourite and Poor Things—Yorgos Lanthimos returns to his misanthropically demented roots with this film, which re-teams him with his Greek screenwriting compatriot Efthimis Filippou. The duo were responsible for some of Lanthimos’s most twisted and eerily fantastic early films.

Here they unleash a triptych of stories that all revolve around one omnipresent character mysteriously named R.M.F. Aside from that, the thematic through line tends to focus on dominance and submission in a variety of extremes ranging from mutilation to rape and everything in-between. The film is not for those faint of heart, that’s for sure.

It’s all delivered in Lanthimos and Filippou’s wonderfully deadpan and detached manner, which will no doubt be off-putting to many; much 
of the dialogue is delivered in stiff, lurching, often unemotional vocal patterns. Yet for those willing to stick it out, the film is rife with numerous WTF moments and is gloriously saturated in sparse and glaring atonal music that amps up the emotional fortitude to 11.  Ultimately, the entire event feels like a sick-and-twisted update on The Twilight Zone.

The assembled core cast of Jesse Plemens, Emma Stone, Willem Dafoe, Margaret Qualley, Hong Chau, Mamoudou Athie, and the enigmatic Yorgos Stefanakos, are all mesmerizing in their displays of fetishism, subordination, anger, confusion, and the like.

There are many jarring elements dotted throughout the stories that will undoubtedly induce cringes, grimaces, and unease in some viewers (I exclaimed “FUCK ME!” under my breath more than once) and those expecting the loopy absurdist fantasy elements that populated Poor Things will have another think coming as this film is edgy and mean spirited, but also funny in a bizarrely satirical manner.

Of 'Roids and Romance - Love Lies Bleeding film review

Aside from the obvious comparisons—Thelma & Louise, Bound, Wild Things—director and co-screenwriter Rose Glass’s latest genre blast has more in common with the early work of John Dahl (Kill Me Again and Red Rock West) and that classic of American lit, Of Mice and Men, than anything else. She also seems heavily influenced by Nicolas Winding Refn, as well.

On the surface it’s an unabashed love story concerned with one Lou (fantastically portrayed by Kristen Stewart), a deceptively meek and mild manager at an industrial gym and drifter cum wannabe bodybuilder Jackie (an uber ripped Katy O'Brian). Things go horribly awry when the two hook up, become lovers and the latter finds a taste for steroids. Oh yeah, the whole endeavor is laced with quick-flash lurid sex and ultra-violence. 

Furthermore, if one wishes to get academically introspective, the story also examines toxic femininity and what happens when women adopt the traits of toxic masculinity in order to navigate the twisted patriarchy of bodybuilding and the late ‘80s underworld of Albuquerque gun running.

Lensed in a neon like dream haze that’s more nightmare hallucinatory gonzoness than anything else, the film is additionally drenched in a sonic maelstrom of electronic oomphs! courtesy of Clint (Pop Will Eat Itself) Mansell, not to mention mind-numbingly intense sound design.

As for the Steinbeckian connection? Read into that as you will, but I found the lead characters of Lou to be akin to George with Jackie taking on the role of Lennie. Feel free to draw your own conclusions, but this story follows many of the same themes as the 1937 novel.

Honestly, though, when stripped to its core, this is a wickedly paced, slick and frenetic ode to steamy 1980’s noir B-movies. And there’s nothing wrong with that.

RIYL

Good Time; Vengeance; Rumble Fish; Wild at Heart