Kill List [DVD]

It's easy to see why Ben Wheatley's sophomore feature Kill List won over British critics but found it much harder to woo audiences: it's a film with a lot going for it that really doesn't pay off and doesn't stand up to much examination. It's a film of surface pleasures, but of a very low budget indie kind - no big effects, set pieces or glossy visuals but strong characterisation, believable dialogue and excellent performances that give the illusion of eavesdropping on real life, all in the service of a genre that has long since turned into near-parody with over-stylised wisecracks and philosophising and comic book violence.

Starting out as a slice of life kitchen sink drama, becoming a thriller and gradually developing into a horror film, Neil Maskell is malingerer is persuaded by wife MyAnna Buring to get back to work with old army mate Michael Smiley because there's nothing left in the bank account. The work is well paid and local: kill three men in the UK. But these two don't behave like typical movie hitmen, more like commercial travellers, and it's that sense of the everyday observed that gives the film much of its power. Maskell argues with his wife in front of friends at dinner parties, gets pissed off when his credit card is declined at a hotel and finds corporate downsizing immoral while killing for a man who demands the contract be signed in blood. That's not the first hint that things are going to get a bit wickerish, but when his victims thank him even when he sets to work on them with a hammer, it's clear there's more going on than meets the eye. Or so it appears.

The reality is that there's actually less going on than meets the eye, but it's played in such a naturalistic style that it starts to convince you that it just might turn into something really special. All three leads are excellent, and even the supporting cast (which includes a cameo from Twins of Evil's Damien Thomas as a doctor) are convincingly naturalistic: even as the weirdness multiplies, they behave like recognisable human beings with all the light and shade and character flaws that implies. But the semi-improvised script is never as strong as the execution, particularly around the 75-minute mark when the film does a sharp u-turn purely to accommodate a very thin twist that doesn't really resolve or explain anything but just feels like it's there because the filmmakers thought it would make for a cool scene.

Unfortunately it's not enough, not so much because it leaves the hero as confused by what's happened as the audience but more because you come away with the feeling that it's just done for effect rather than as the inevitable result of the chain of events and the character's failings and that the reason there are unanswered questions is because the filmmakers haven't really thought it through that much. (The particularly weak director and producer's audio commentary does nothing to dispel the idea, especially compared to the amount of thought that goes into the alternate commentary by the cast.) Which is a shame, because for those first 75 minutes Kill List is shaping up to be a terrific movie and even after the final descent into silliness there's a lot to admire even if, as the film's cinematographer Laurie Rose noted, it's really just a film about a horrible man who wins a hat...

This is an independent horror drama from director and writer Ben Wheatley who has worked with comedians Steve Coogan and Jonny Vegas in the past, but this one does not have a foot in the realm of comedy. It is about two old army buddies, who decided to become hit men after their country no longer needed them. We join Jay (Neil Maskell) a year after a bungled job in Kiev. His acerbic wife Shell (played with brilliant complexity by MyAnna Buring) tells him all their money is gone, as he has not done any `work' for a year. He meanwhile only wants to cure his back in their hot tub; she insists he is making it all up and there is nothing wrong with him.

Then his old mucker turns up, Gal (Michael Smiley). They are having a dinner party and Gal has brought his latest flame Fiona, a mysterious one indeed who seems to enjoy pentangle like symbols. Well after a mass row, Gal invites Jay to go back to work. They agree and set off to meet their client. He gives them a hit list that includes a priest a librarian and an MP. They are not told their crimes and so Jay lets his imagination fill in the blanks. He is still traumatised from past experiences and seems to find some form of mental rehabilitation through inflicting violence. This he goes at with some very worrying gusto indeed.

What unfolds gets darker and darker as the violence escalates and things are seen in their true light. This is one from the school of seventies horror with a sort of cross between the classic `The Wicker Man'The Wicker Man - Director's Cut [DVD] and Peter Fonda's lost classic `Race with the Devil'Race With The Devil [DVD]. There is plenty of disturbing violence, language that a docker would baulk at and some brilliantly tense scenes. The soundtrack works too, even though at first I felt it was trying to be too spooky with echoey voices all over the place. By the end you will not notice as everything coalesces to a climax that kept me guessing.

Not a straight forward horror as there is a lot of life drama too and some exploration of the mental luggage that people acquire who have been in stressful situations. All of the acting was above par and a lot is left unexplained, in that you automatically fill in the blanks. I actually thought this was really good. Also a note on funding, this was a collaboration with the UK Film Council and Channel 4 who should be praised for their involvement, it's a shame the Council is being abolished. If you like the new wave of Brit horrors then this is up there with the better ones.

Very good. Kill List is one of those films that almost becomes more enjoyable the following day after watching having had time to re-run it in your head. Kill List is a surreal, nightmarish tale of morality and descent into depravity. It has a very tight straightforward plot concerning two ex-army friends involvement as hired killers and their list of targets for their new client. This story is interwoven with a sinister sub-plot involving satanic(?) imagery, some bizarre and unnatural reactions from the killers victims and almost everyone else they encounter, paranoia and barbarity.
Just about every relationship is dysfunctional at its inner core and though despicable in nature the characters also exhibit quite vulnerable even likeable sides early on until the gradual character erosion and exposure to their dark sides kicks in.
I'm a bit suprised at so many low ratings as even given the unusual direction the film takes towards the end the journey there is still fantastically acted and plot wise is very strong, disturbing and thought provoking. I look forward to seeing it again and I think that's pretty much a prerequisite given the subtlety of much of the inferences, unexplained references and symbolic nature of much of the strange events that occur.
A very good character study and plot driven horror that while it thematically resonates with some other films I didn't think it was derivative at all of any of them.