How entertaining? ★★★★☆
Thought provoking? ★★☆☆☆ 31 August 2011
This article is a review of KILL LIST. |
“Don’t talk to me like I’m a c**t!” Shel
DOWN TERRACE was a very low budget gangster comedy set in one house – it was surprising and funny, with a cracking script. Director Ben Wheatley’s sophomore effort is far more ambitious and just as successful. He and his team have made a brooding, disturbing hitman flick, the thematic antithesis to GROSSE POINTE BLANK. It starts off like a kitchen sink drama and seamlessly morphs into a horror film. Don’t think it’s all dour; it’s funny in places too, with great one-liners. Naturalism, black comedy, thriller and horror - this genre mash up really works. And most refreshingly keeps you guessing right until the denouement, how often does a movie do that? The mysterious ending might frustrate some; but audiences are getting more and more used to multiplex fare not necessarily tying everything together neatly e.g. THERE WILL BE BLOOD and HIDDEN.
DOWN TERRACE was a very low budget gangster comedy set in one house – it was surprising and funny, with a cracking script. Director Ben Wheatley’s sophomore effort is far more ambitious and just as successful. He and his team have made a brooding, disturbing hitman flick, the thematic antithesis to GROSSE POINTE BLANK. It starts off like a kitchen sink drama and seamlessly morphs into a horror film. Don’t think it’s all dour; it’s funny in places too, with great one-liners. Naturalism, black comedy, thriller and horror - this genre mash up really works. And most refreshingly keeps you guessing right until the denouement, how often does a movie do that? The mysterious ending might frustrate some; but audiences are getting more and more used to multiplex fare not necessarily tying everything together neatly e.g. THERE WILL BE BLOOD and HIDDEN.
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Married couple Jay (Neil Maskell) and Shel (MyAnna Buring) are having blazing rows, over the former not working for the last eight months and the inevitable money concerns. Jay says his back is injured. This flares up when his bud Gal (the brilliant Michael Smiley – “She’s a demon in bed... Put it this way, I had to shave my pubes after.”), and Gal’s new girlfriend Fiona, come round for dinner. The bickering is very believable. If it wasn’t for the title (which at this point could be ironic) and DOWN TERRACE, you could settle down for a stylish domestic drama (you don’t get slow-mo in those very often), but Jay shows Gal the present he got from Shel... a machine gun. What a lady! At the end of the night Fiona carves into the bathroom mirror a weird demonic-esque symbol, which is also the film’s first image, compounding a sense of unease building skilfully.
Verbal violence is always on the verge of erupting, and that tension becomes a quiet dread of physical brutality, especially after Jay and Gal are hired to kill three people and the second one is tortured first. That scene is stomach churning. You find out interestingly from them that they are disgusted by what this victim has done, but not actually what the crime is in their eyes. Ambiguity is prevalent throughout, and gripping for it, as you try to piece together back story and motivations.
KILL LIST is a cocktail of the regular with the horrific, frivolity and menace; an impressive Brit flick. High five Mr. Wheatley!