Kill List (2011)
Drew Tinnin
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Starring Neil Maskell, MyAnna Buring, Michael Smiley, Emma Fryer
Directed by Ben Wheatley
Kill List is a secret that you want to keep – a family drama turned psycho hitman tale that sweeps you up like a hurricane and doesn’t really care where you land.
Director Ben Wheatley (Down Terrace) certainly gives us a great deal to ponder, but unfortunately there’s not much to tell for fear of breaking the unspoken promise Kill List makes with its audience.
And once the credits roll, you’ll have to keep the secret, too.
Beginning with one of the most awkward dinner parties ever to grace the silver screen, Wheatley introduces us to Jay (Neil Maskell) and Shel (MyAnna Buring) – a couple on the verge of a nervous breakdown, mainly due to a growing rage within Jay, an ex-soldier who hasn’t worked in months. Gal (Michael Smiley) and his mysterious girlfriend, Fiona (Emma Fryer), are the unfortunate couple forced to bear witness to a failing marriage, but Gal and Jay actually go back a long way. They also work together … as hitmen.
Now on assignment, Gal observes Jay as he really starts to go off the rails, beating their victims viciously with a hammer and becoming more of a vigilante than a contract killer. Once off the beaten path, the two find themselves in undiscovered country; completely overwhelmed, they band together to fight a force they’ve never encountered before.
The story of Kill List isn’t afraid to follow the downward spiral of its characters, rather than keeping them out of trouble and staying in one particular genre. Rest assured, Kill List is definitely a horror film – one that harkens back to films like The Wicker Man, where the tables turn and the insanity bubbles over.
3 out of 5
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