Tag: k

Killing Ruth: The Snuff Dialogues

  By

★★
“Editing. It’s a choice.”

As soon as I saw the running time of this was one hundred and thirty-one minutes, it immediately went onto the back-burner. I have a busy life, and I’ve going to devote close to two and a quarter hours to a low-budget movie, it is going to be when I have a lot of time to spare. My qualms were obvious, and proved very well-founded. This absolutely had no need to be so long. Indeed, it feels like a first draft, which became a shooting script, and everything filmed then ended up in the end product. Entire scenes are superfluous, and those which aren’t could use between “some” and “an oce-lot” of tightening up.

It’s the story of Ruth Keeley (Huljak), who comes home one day to find her father shot dead in his car. She eventually discovers that he had been a hit-man, working for Rod Porter (Jackson), and ends up following into the family business, as it were. On one job in a hospital, she ends up befriending Mrs. Connors (Wallace), the patient in the next bed to her target, and starts sharing her life with the old woman, who offers zero moral judgement. That includes her relationship with long-suffering boyfriend Cameron (Sanzari), and the quest to find out who was behind the death of her father, and why. Which turns out to be exactly who I expected, from about two hours previously.

The idea at its core is not a bad one. There’s something to be said for the idea of an assassin being plain and unremarkable, allowing them to slide past without attracting attention. Ruth is certainly that, being a waitress until her change in career direction, and Huljak is a good choice. She’s incredibly normal, and about as far from the Luc Besson-style of supermodel hit-woman as you can imagine. I’d like to see a film where we have a hitwoman dealing with everyday issues in between violent killing sprees, such as figuring our taxes, or dealing with annoying neighbours. This, however, is more interested in low-key conversations – and by “low-key”, I mean too many scenes which, to borrow a Python quote, wouldn’t “voom” if you put four million volts through them.

Even Wallace, who brings value to everything she’s in, isn’t able to energize things adequately. Not helping: the film brings in ideas, then discards them again, almost at random. For example, Ruth’s late father shows up and talks to her for a bit, then just… doesn’t. Or she gets a mysterious letter from her father’s killer; an angle which the movie forgets about entirely for a good hour, before bringing it back in, semi-randomly, at the end, to try and achieve closure. Long before that point, this had been reduced to the level of background radiation. It was on, and I was in the same room as it. Much more than that, I can’t commit to. But it definitely fails as action, probably as a thriller, and largely as drama too.

Dir: Nicholas Kinsey
Star: Irena Huljak, Dee Wallace, Kevin Jackson, Patrizio Sanzari

The Kill List

  By

★★★½
“Dressed to kill.”

For a TV movie, this is very impressive. When you hear that phrase, I usually think of something which appears on Lifetime or, worse still, Hallmark. But it seems that Thai television is made of sterner stuff. This plays much tougher, more like something you might see on AMC or FX. The story may not be particularly original, but it’s done with enough style and energy to make for more than passable entertainment The heroine is Angie (Rittapinun), an orphan who was brought up by her uncle and trained as an assassin. Her latest mission involves the retrieval of a data chip which contains a list of all the members in the organization of which she’s part. In the wrong hands, it could be disastrous.

Except the mission goes wrong, and the chip ends up in the hands of a hooker, Nina (Pitaktrairong), whom Angie let live because she was reminded of her sister, not seen since the day their parents were killed. This gets Angie disavowed by the organization, and they send further killers after her. Meanwhile, detective Sam (Asavanond) is hot on the trail of Angie for all the corpses left in her wake. Policeman and hitwoman are – probably inevitably – forced to team up, because the conspiracy behind things has tentacles considerably closer to home than is comfortable for either of them. It all leads to a confrontation where the truth about Angie’s bloody childhood is revealed.

Yeah, there’s not a lot here which you won’t have seen done before. It seems to be inspired mostly by Hong Kong movies like Naked Weapon, and that’s certainly not a bad place from which to start. It is refreshingly free of romance: I kept expecting Sam and Angie to fall for each other, but their relationship is kept strictly professional. [Sam, instead, is heavily crushed on by a policewoman at the station] I was a little disappointed that the film does not follow through on the bleak tone for which it appeared to be heading. Too many people who are supposed to be dead, turn out not to be, though there is at least one fairly unexpected fatality.

The action isn’t bad, even if I was amused by the Imperial Stormtrooper level of marksmanship displayed, as a way of getting round the whole pesky firearms problem. Rittapinun snaps off some nice kicks, making an especially good first impression with some high-heeled kung-fu, aided by enthusiastic stuntwork from those she’s fighting. While there does appear to be some doubling for the more gymnastic moments, it’s done well enough to pass muster. An occasionally over-melodramatic moment or two don’t harm proceedings too badly either, and the makers keep things moving along at a brisk pace, with few pauses of excessive length. I found the performances hit their mark, even if there’s nothing particularly novel about the characters: cop who gets 48 hours to solve the case, troubled assassin with a heart of gold, etc. This is still pretty serviceable and I enjoyed it – though after Ninja: Prophecy of Death, anything would seem an upgrade.

Dir: Chalerm Wongpim
Star: Thikumporn Rittapinun, Sarawut Mardthong, Netchanok Pitaktrairong, David Asavanond

Kung Fu Wonder Child

  By

★★
“So. Many. Questions…”

You may have noticed that I’ve been on a bit of a spree with these Taiwanese fantasy-fu flicks of late. However, I think I’m feeling a bit sated with them at this point, and the law of diminishing returns seems to be setting in. There are only so many unconvincing male impersonators, bad effects (both optical and practical) and almost illegible and/or illiterate subtitles a man can take, and I think I’ve reached my capacity in almost of these categories. Fortunately, my queue of such things seems to be nearing an end, with just a couple more to go. Still, after this delirious experience, I feel in need of a week or two’s break from the madness.

The villain here is the usual long-haired sorcerer (Li), who is collecting souls for the usual, megalomaniac purposes, and keeping them in large, ceramic jars in his yard. As you do. Among his collection are the father and sibling of Chiu Hsu (a rather under-used Oshima, albeit very early in her career), and she eventually links up with helpful unconvincing male impersonator, Hsiu Chuen (Lin, of course) and not one, but two, annoying comic sidekicks, Mi Fu and Tudor. Hsiu is a servant at a martial arts school, where her grandfather (Long) is the cook. Except Hsiu wants to learn the skills taught at the school, and Gramps is not just the mild-mannered chef he initially appears to be. Hilarity ensues. Well, if your idea of hilarity is a dog peeing on someone’s face, at least.

This is the kind of thing where it feels like the makers threw every idea they came up with onto the screen, regardless of a) relevance and b) whether or not it could be executed with any degree of competence. For example, the first would include the extended opening prologue about a Chinese hopping vampire, and his two kids. It serves no purpose and seems to have strayed in from a completely different movie. As for the second… well, outside of the willingness of Taiwanese stunt-people to fling themselves around and into things for our enjoyment, this rarely gets to passable, even allowing for it approaching forty years in age. I did laugh that one of the monsters Hsiu ends up fighting, is obviously a flying facehugger from Alien.

That said, there is a surprisingly decent stab at mixing animation with live-action, when the villain transforms into an animated dragon for the final battle. If it’s not exactly Who Framed Roger Rabbit, it’s not notably worse than the Disney efforts in this area. In general though, the execution trails far behind the imagination, and as a result, does the latter something of a disservice. The slabs of childish humor are no more of a help. In the film’s defense, the target audience is likely also childish, or at least, child-ish. On that basis perhaps some slack needs to be cut? Yet I couldn’t help thinking, “It was acceptable in the 80s, it was acceptable at the time…”

Dir: Tso Nam Lee
Star: Hsiao-Lao Lin, Yukari Oshima, Jack Long, Hai-Hsing Li

Kid West

  By

★★★
“A little heart goes a long way”

I’ve mentioned before the general lack of action-heroine films for the pre-teenage crowd: The Golden Compass is a rare example of one which would play for that audience. This is another, though that is largely where the similarities end. This likely cost considerably less than 1% of Compass‘s $180 million budget, being an independent production out of Minnesota. However, what it almost entirely lacks in spectacle, it largely makes up for with no small amount of heart. The little heroine is 12-year-old Harper ‘Kid’ West (Bair), who has just moved with her Mom from Missouri to Minnesota. Dad, a sheriff, was killed in the line of duty, but right from the start, we see he clearly instilled a strong sense of right and wrong in his daughter.

In their new home town, the big news is the discovery of a key belonging to 19th-century business tycoon Walter Smith, which could hold the… ah, key to hidden treasure. The artifact is stolen from a local museum, and Kid suspects local bully Braden (Reyes) and his gang are responsible. With the help of new pal Angie Little Sky (Quiroz) and the local sheriff (Reyes), she sets out to solve the mystery and earn the reward money her Mom very much needs. However, there was apparently a curse placed on Smith by a medicine man of the local Ojibwa Indian tribe, potentially making the quest all the more perilous.

At 63 minutes, including credits, this is barely a feature film, yet I’m fine with that: more movies should err on the side of brevity, I feel. This plays to the audience’s benefit, since there’s not a lot of slack or downtime here, with the plot continually moving forward. It is, of necessity, fairly simplistic, yet it rarely feels like it’s talking down to the viewer, with enough mature elements to avoid playing as purely a kid-flick. That said, it plays it all super-safe, and will offer no surprises if you are above the age of Kid. Any adults really don’t need to pay attention here, because the plot unfolds right down the line as you’d expect, all the way to Braden learning the error of his ways.

The big plus, which stops it from falling into saccharine excess, is Bair, who delivers a performance which has just the right amount of earnestness. She’s a thoroughly admirable role-model for any young girl: prepared to stand up for what’s right, yet (and this is rarer than you’d imagine) respectful to her elders, with no teen brattiness to be found. despite the rather unflattering sleeve! The rest of the performances are mostly functional rather than memorable, though neither do they stand out in a negative way. The film has some decent BMX/truck stunts, even if the digital effects accompanying the “curse” did not leave me whelmed. All told, I did not hate this, and as family entertainment, you could do considerably worse. It certainly gets the nod over something like Barbie Spy Squad.

Dir: Jesse Mast
Star: Mary Bair, Atquetzali Quiroz, Bruce Bohne, Lorenzo Reyes

Kill Boksoon

  By

★★★½
“Joan Wick”

There’s a lot to admire about this South Korean film, though a couple of fumbles stop it from achieving the heights it threatens to do. You’d be forgiven for thinking it’s a knock-off of Kill Bill going by the title. But it’s as much a pun on the name of the heroine, Gil Bok-soon (Jeon). She has been an assassin since she was 17, and has worked her way up to be the top employee of the MK. ENT corporation, run by Cha Min-kyu (Sol). They are one of a number of competing companies offering killers for hire, but to ensure standards, certain common rules have been agreed, e.g. no kids, and are adhered to by all. Well… Kinda…

Bok-soon has a teenage daughter, Jae-yeong (Kim), from whom she has kept her career secret. But Bok-soon is still concerned Jae-yeong might follow in her footsteps, especially after she stabs a schoolmate in the neck. Bok-soon also breaks one of those corporate rules when she refuses to kill a politician’s son. This kicks off an escalating series of problems, largely driven by Min-kyu’s sister, Min-hee (Esom), a director of MK ENT, who had long resented Bok-soon’s special relationship with her brother. Bok-soon eventually finds herself on the receiving end of a contract, despite Min-kyu’s best efforts to avoid such a scenario, while also having to handle the teenage drama of Jae-yeong, and keep her personal and work lives separate. 

I enjoyed the world building here. It feels a little like John Wick in its creation of a shadow society of assassins, operating by its own rules just beneath the surface. There is a peculiarly corporate feel to this one, perhaps a reflection of South Korean culture. For example, Bok-soon hangs out at a restaurant with some employees of “rival” companies, shooting the business breeze. The place is run by a former assassin, and it’s all very convivial – at least until the contract on her comes out. What follows is likely the action highlight of the film (not least the fate of the poor, unfortunate owner). I also loved Bok-soon’s way of foreseeing how fights will go, like a chess master thinking moves ahead. A similar skill was seen in Zhang Yimou’s Hero; this ramps it up.

Less successful is the family drama. I’ve a low tolerance for whiny teenagers (I’ve lived through it!), and this all felt too soap-opera for my tastes. I get that the daughter’s secret is intended as a parallel for her mother’s, but it’s too obvious and generated more eye-rolling than emotional connection. With an extended running-time of 137 minutes, it certainly feels like unnecessary padding. I’d rather have learned more about the world of the assassins, rather than Jae-yeong’s (largely self-inflicted) schoolyard angst. But even discarding that, there’s still plenty to appreciate here, with Jeon’s strong performance at its core. If this were to follow John Wick in becoming a franchise, I certainly would not complain. 

Dir: Byun Sung-hyun
Star: Jeon Do-yeon, Sol Kyung-gu, Kim Si-a, Esom

Kung Fu Ghost

  By

★★
“The spirit is willing…”

This is another example of someone simply trying to do too much on their movie. For Linch not only starred in, produced and directed this, she also edited it, did the sound design and was the colourist. It’s not hard to predict her talents are not equally divided. It’s a shame, since I really wanted to enjoy this: much like its heroine, there’s a plucky, can-do attitude present, which can only be admired. Unfortunately, anyone above the age of eight is going to be quite hard-pushed to overlook the flaws. While the action is not especially one of those, the volume there is underwhelming, and the romantic, comedic and dramatic elements are hugely variable, to put it politely.

Daisy (Linch) returns from Vietnam after inheriting the house belonging to her late grandfather (Dawson). This turns out to be handed, both by his spirit and that of William (Sargent), a younger, cuter ghost. It’s actually a good thing, because it turns out some bad people are after an artifact hidden in the house. It can confer the gift of eternal life, and they send a selection of thugs and ninjas to take the relic. With Grandpa now dead, it’s up to Daisy to take over his role as its guardian. While she’s training up to be able to do the job herself, Grandpa is capable of possessing her when necessary, which imbues her – not entirely willingly – with his martial arts abilities.

It is certainly family-friendly, emphasizing the importance of familial loyalty, hard work and honour. So that’s nice. Linch knows her way around a fight sequence; unfortunately, the same can’t be said for delivering her lines in English. A thick accent, compounded by ropey audio work, may well leave you straining to figure out what she is saying, though fortunately she can still emote well enough to put over the gist. The romance between Daisy and William is strictly boiler-plate stuff, and the comedy is not much better, despite a Ghost parody which does at least reach moderately amusing (I did also laugh at the Jean-Claude Van Damme reference). This leads to long periods where there is simply not enough happening to hold your attention.

It is the kind of story which I could imagine coming out of Hong Kong in the early nineties – perhaps with Sammo Hung as the grandfather, and Moon Lee as the heroine – so I get the concept for which Linch was aiming. This has to count as a swing and a miss: even the notoriously variable HK comedy would likely be an improvement over what we receive here. That said, I’d not be averse to seeing more of Linch, in the right vehicle instead of this misfire. Despite the problems, Daisy is a genuine and likable character, and I did want her to succeed. Though my biggest unanswered question is probably: what happened to the cat she left behind in Vietnam? Inquiring minds need to know…

Dir: Jennifer N. Linch
Star: Jennifer N. Linch, David S. Dawson, Noah Sargent, Rene Fernandez

Kimi

  By

★★★
“Blue is the warmest colour”

Angela Childs (Kravitz) is a computer programmer who fixes bugs on the new smart speaker “Kimi”. It’s a perfect job, as she suffers from agoraphobia but can work at home, interrupted only by occasional sex with friendly neighbour (Bowers). When she finds a recording she thinks is a sexual assault on a woman, she contacts her superiors, who don’t seem eager to contact the FBI. Angela experienced an assault in the past herself (causing her agoraphobia), and goes directly to an executive at the central office, Natalie Chowdhury (Wilson). What she does not know is, that her company is about to go public and the woman she heard, the lover of its CEO, is already dead. Not only are the authorities uninformed, her own company has sent hired killers on her trail, with state-of-the-art tech to locate Angela. She must leave her home, agoraphobia or not.

This movie got my initial attention when I saw the poster with a blue-haired Zoë Kravitz and the word “Kimi” over it – I originally thought that would be the name of her character. I don’t know if this movie was actually shown in cinema in the US (Jim: no, it went straight to streaming), here in Germany it ran in a few cinemas for about 2 weeks. In America it can be seen on HBO Max; here in Germany it is available on Amazon-Prime. This is good as there is – unlike the US – no German DVD release. I worried this would be another one of those “woke” movies: it’s not. Written by first-class screenwriter David Koepp (Jurassic Park, Mission Impossible“, Spider-Man (2002), Indiana Jones 4) and directed by Steven Soderbergh, this movie proves to be very effective.

We see Kravitz living quite comfortably in her large flat and though she can only see her mother online and isn’t able to go downstairs to meet her friend for some fast-food in front of the door, she isn’t missing much. She more or less has everything she needs at home. In that respect the movie perfectly mirrors the situation many of us around the globe experienced during the lockdowns, when we were asked to work from home if we could. Let’s face it, quite a lot of people got used to this kind of situation, and companies could save a lot of money, not needing to have their employees actually in a dedicated working place.

Kimi indirectly discusses this attitude, but also seems to make a clear point that there is a need to leave your own four walls sometimes, because not everything can be handled from your laptop. That said, it’s quite disturbing how much can be done by digital tracking, and this results in a real “woman hunt” through the city, with Angela’s chances rising when she gets rid of her mobile phone. The world outside is frightening through her eyes: some people are out but it’s not too crowded until she gets into a demonstration. Most shocking is the way she is almost kidnapped there by the assassins, in broad daylight. I’d also like to mention the unusual but good and very interesting score by Cliff Martinez, such as when she escapes from the central office.

It is not until about an hour that Kravitz leaves her apartment. But ultimately her journey leads back home: in the end no one can help, not even a friendly stalker from across the street – only herself. The movie has been from time to time mentioned in comparison with Hitchcock’s Rear Window which I think is a bit too high praise. Other movies such as Blow Out (1981) by Brian de Palma, Enemy of the State (1998) with Will Smith and Gene Hackman, or the recent Netflix thriller The Woman in the Window (2021) with Amy Adams come to mind. The last one especially shares the basic situation of the protagonist with this, though Window is much less successful. Kimi is also part of a long line of what could be called “digital surveillance thrillers”.

David Koepp himself once wrote a similar movie: Panic Room (2002) in which Jodie Foster had to defend herself and her daughter from that location against burglars. But while in Panic Room the main idea was to escape and get help, here there is no more security outside. The authorities can’t (or don’t want to) help, and your employer or company have turned against you. It’s a subject Soderbergh has previously covered in Haywire or Unsane. So, while Koepp and Soderbergh don’t tell an entirely new story here, they have put it on a contemporary level. This works, giving a new coat of paint to the old thriller genre, that has become a bit stale and isn’t seen so often anymore. Modern Hollywood seems more interested in the newest superhero movie or the latest Tom Cruise blockbuster.

Kravitz gives in my opinion a very good performance. I’ve never been a real fan, though she seems to have had a breakthrough as Catwoman in The Batman (2022), opposite Robert Pattinson. Here, I can’t complain: I was convinced the heroine was both agoraphobic and quite stubborn. The other actors here are largely unknown, yet give good, fitting performances, and it all comes together well. There are some nice audio ideas in the movie; for example when Angela puts on her headphones everything becomes quiet. This is the same thing we do on a daily basis: just try to fade out the real world. Kimi seems to be saying that we maybe shouldn’t do this so often. We should go out and involve ourselves, and take a stand for things we care for. That’s not a bad message, I think.

Dir: Stephen Soderbergh
Star: Zoë Kravitz, Byron Bowers, Rita Wilson, Erika Christensen

Kung Fu Girl Fighter

  By

★★½
“Could have been a contender.”

Yeah, I think if I’d seen this under the alternate title of On the Waterfront, I might well have passed it by. Though that is probably a slightly more accurate description of the contents here, even allowing for the complete absence of Marlon Brando. [At least we didn’t have to deal with the expectations set by the Italian title, which translates as “The merciless hand of Bruce Lee strikes again”!] It takes place around the Whampoa wharves in Shanghai, where various crime families are jostling for position and control, with varying degrees of morality e.g. whether or not they approve of drugs and/or sex trafficking as a means to make money. Particularly of note here are Red Rose (Tang) and Zhou (Chang), who eventually end up allies against their common enemy (Chen).

Key word: eventually, as we take a meandering route to that final 15-20 minutes, where things seriously kick off. Up until then, it has been fairly low-impact. During the first half, there’s only about one good fight, Rose (or Red? I’m not sure what to call her) fending off a slew of attackers seeking to return Zhou’s gambling winnings to the casino. At the half-way point, there’s also a restaging of a scene from the same year’s Fist of Fury, where Bruce took exception to a “No Chinese or dogs” sign in a park. Rose goes berserk on seeing park guards beating up Chinese kids. Otherwise though, it’s mostly plot-based shenanigans, before the admittedly somewhat impressive finale.

However, the print circling YouTube, Tubi and Amazon Prime is flat out wretched. While it’s okay in terms of cropping, it’s so badly faded that it looks more like a pastel watercolour than a portrait of a vibrant port. There are also appears to have been some censorship issues in this English dubbed version. Another review refers to “a superbly sensual bath-house murder scene,” which is entirely missing. The last fight may also have suffered, the villain’s dozen or so henchmen apparently evaporating into bodies on the dockside without any visible action from Rose and Zhou. I suspect a decent, uncut (and, ideally, subtitled) edition might well get at least a half-star more.

Tang’s approach is relatively static in comparison to her co-star. She seems to have been more a dramatic actress, who while still a teenager, won the Best Supporting Actress award at the first ever Golden Horse awards, Taiwan’s top film honour. This straightforward plateful of chop-socky would therefore appear a bit of an aberration, yet Hou shoots her moves well enough they pass muster. It may also explain why the dramatic elements are perhaps a little better than normal for the “straightforward chop-socky” genre, though of course are also impacted by the dubbing. Still, her passionate rage during the park scene does still come through, and it’s a bit of a shame she apparently did not pursue further endeavours in the same line as this.

Dir: Cheng Hou
Star: Bao-Yun Tang, Yi Chang, Hung-Lieh Chen, Tien Yueh
a.k.a. On the Waterfront

Knucks

  By

½
“Knucks sucks.”

I’m tempted to leave my review at that. But there’s a famous quote by critic Roger Ebert, going off on Bruce Willis flop, North: “I hated this movie. Hated hated hated hated hated this movie. Hated it. Hated every simpering stupid vacant audience-insulting moment of it. Hated the sensibility that thought anyone would like it. Hated the implied insult to the audience by its belief that anyone would be entertained by it.” I was always impressed, and hoped one day to find a film capable of producing a similar reaction. This is… close. It is, let’s be clear, utterly terrible, with almost no redeeming qualities. Yet it’s either not bad enough, or more likely, too bad to generate such a reaction. That would be giving it more power and credit than this deserves. 

Why are we here? This is less an existential question than a desire to explain why I’m writing a review. It’s because of this synopsis: “Two women attempt to come up after beating their drug dealer to death.” That was good enough to get it on my radar. However, within a couple of minutes, it was clear I had made a terrible mistake, and was about to be in for the longest 66 minutes of my life. Here’s another quote, from the BBFC, explaining the 15 rating: “There are scenes in which a child is abducted by two men, but it is not clear what their intentions are.” The two words “not clear” are the best way to summarize the misbegotten art-wank which I endured, substituting pointless video manipulation for plot, characterization or any positive aspects.

It’s as if the makers had obtained a list of all the elements I despise most about pretentious movies, and had treated it as a request list. Random colour filters. Check. Strobe effects. Check. Shitty heavy metal soundtrack. Check. Obtuse dialogue. Check. Scenes unfolding in murky near-darkness. Check. Shaky, hand-held, extreme close-up camerawork. Check, check and, in no uncertain terms, check. The basic plot, and I use the word in its loosest way, is mostly ripped off from True Romance, with heroines and sisters Kathleen (Leidy) and Taylor (Harlan) attempting to sell a bagful of drugs obtained from the dead dealer, to someone who looks like a Kid Rock impersonator.

But this doesn’t really show up until the final fifteen minutes. Until then, we get meaningless flashbacks to their abusive childhood (of course!), in which their film-maker father seems to be involved in porn and snuff. I am not exaggerating when I say either of these would likely be more entertaining. Things come to a head, when the original owner of the drugs shows up, burbles threateningly for a bit, before keeling over. It ends in much the same way as the previous hour has unfolded: an incoherent mess. I was genuinely relieved by the short running-time, though if it had been much longer, it might well have been a rare cinematic “did not finish.” The terminally slow end credit crawl was easily the best thing about this. Largely because it indicated the end was mercifully nigh.

Dir: Gage Maynard
Star: Dasha Leidy, Hedley Harlan, Mindy Robinson, Alan Bagh

A Killer Rising

  By

★★½
“FBI Agent Jekyll and Hyde”

At least a star of the above rating is purely for the concept, which is one just brimming with potential. The problem here is entirely down to execution that isn’t just lacklustre, it’s entirely devoid of all lustre. First and foremost, there is absolutely no reason for this to have a running time of 122 minutes, especially when the first half makes its point inside about ten, and then sits there, as if waiting for a bus. It’s a particular issue, because it’s only the second half where things get adequately interesting. You will need a great deal of patience – or, probably more likely, some household chores to take care of – in order to reach that point.

The heroine is Kacee Rhona (Beckly), an irascible FBI agent with a long history of disciplinary issues, going back to her days at Quantico. It’s perhaps not surprising, considering her childhood was a hellish landscape of abuse, from which she barely escaped at all, only after defending herself against her biological father. You do wonder how someone with such obvious psychological issues was accepted into the FBI, but whatevs. Seems she’s quite good at her job, and is now hot on the trail of a serial killer, Montague (Anderson) who has been kidnapping, raping and murdering (not necessarily in that order) a slew of women. It’s largely your standard “loose cannon with issues” thriller, with which we’re all (overly) familiar. While Beckly is… okay, the rest of the cast are well short of convincing, and the production’s resources are insufficient for what it’s trying to do.

Then, however, the killer brutally attacks Agent Rhona, leaving her literally dead for several minutes, and causing something inside her to snap. She becomes a vigilante while officially on sick leave, targetting those whom the law has not been able to punish. And who better to become a serial killer of serial killers, than someone trained to catch serial killers? It’s a bit like an unhinged, female version of Dexter, and is an awesome concept. Her colleagues are… well, for obvious reasons, somewhat ambivalent about this, when their suspicions are drawn towards one of their own kind. On the other hand, Rhona’s operation outside the law has its advantages, especially with Montague still on the loose.

I’d love to see this given the production it deserves, with a better supporting cast, and elements that accurately reflect the supposed FBI setting, which never reaches even “unconvincing”. It feels like a nicely twisted take on Silence of the Lambs, and I could imagine a young Jodie Foster or Angelina Jolie in the role of the heroine. But any remake would also need to go at the script with a pair of garden shears, removing all the extraneous nonsense which drags the front hour down to an uninteresting crawl. There was eventually marginally enough here to keep me going, yet I’d not blame anyone if they chose to cut their losses before that point.

Dir: Michael Fredianelli
Star: Stacy Beckly, Derek Crowe, Kevin Karrick, Jaren Anderson