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Finally saw this. If you are not into movies that give you more questions than answers...stop reading now. If you are interested in this, the less you know going in the better. I could give you a it's_____ meets _____ movie combo, but that would not do it justice. It's a fairly straightforward narrative...UNTIL the third act. Upon reflection, there are irregularites throughout that kind of key you into the fact that this is not going to be standard fare...but you don't add them up...till you are deep in. I can tell you in all honesty, when this was over I googled 'Kill List explained' to find out more. So, I hear you asking, if you had to look up explanations(that I still don't have) why are you not screaming to the heavens about what a fail this flick was??? Well, there are so many interesting ideas here, and the vague rationales that I read afterward from the director/writer and folks just dissecting it make this a fascinating overall experience...TO ME. I cannot in good faith recommend this to anyone. You have to have an open mind and be able to live with not having all given to you. And if you do manage to stick through it it will stay with you for a bit and have you doing some serious thinking.


I hate folks that quote their own ****...but this is necessary.

Here is a contrary review...

Movie Review: Kill List | Geeks of Doom

Movie Review: Kill List






Posted by The Movie God | January 31st, 2012 at 5:00 pm








Kill List
DIRECTOR: Ben Wheatley
WRITER: Ben Wheatley, Amy Jump
STARRING: Neil Maskell, MyAnna Buring, Harry Simpson, Michael Smiley, Emma Fryer, Struan Rodger
IFC Films
RELEASE DATE: US: February 3, 2012 (limited), Available on VOD now; UK: DVD l Blu-ray

Sometimes filmmakers enjoy the art of implication, and sometimes they prefer to leave entire chunks of important information unshared, both allowing for an audience (or forcing them) to use their own creative juices to come to certain conclusions. The Coen brothers, for example, are quite renowned for this very thing at the end of their movies?though performed at a master-filmmaker level?but not even they always get away with it without facing some heavy scrutiny.

For me personally, I go into a movie expecting to be told a great story. And when information is purposely withheld from said story, I can become a tad irritable. Sometimes, after multiple days and much pondering, certain films that go this route can grow on me, whereas others will only infuriate me more. But when it comes to Kill List, I can?t honestly say which side I stand on at the moment.



The movie follows Jay (Neil Maskell), a former soldier whose life is being eaten away at by financial complications and mental instability. For the sake of his wife Shel (MyAnna Buring) and his son Sam (Harry Simpson), Jay decides to return to a life he had left behind as a hitman.

It ended after a job didn?t go as planned in Kiev eight months prior, but now he?s ready to re-team with his partner Gal (Michael Smiley) to take on a kill list: One job. Three kills. Big payday. But as they make their way through the list, some strange and incredibly unexpected variables come into play that severely alter Jay?s state of mind and make the job all the harder, forcing him to decide whether to continue or try and walk away before it?s too late.

The hardest thing when it comes to reviewing Kill List is that the only way I can explain most of my problems with it would be to reveal spoilers along the way. But I shan?t do such a thing, as those who ultimately decide to watch it will want to do so as cleanly as possible (which means even passing up on watching the trailer below, if you?re able to). So we?ll have to make due with what we have to work with.

A couple things I can say about the movie without spoiling anything is: it will warrant some discussion, so if you?re the kind of movie fan that likes deep films worthy of discussion and debate after you may have something worth peeking at here, and also that you can go in not expecting to understand a whole lot. Maybe it?s just because I?m American, but I could barely make out a word these actors were saying half the time they were talking. It can become something of a battle between you and the volume of your TV as you fight to make out words and struggle to lower the louder scenes. Thankfully, much like a silent film, you can still get a pretty strong idea of what?s going on even after missing out on some words. This shouldn?t be a problem for those who get to check it out on DVD or Blu=ray.

As mentioned above, I?m someone who strongly dislikes being told a story that leaves out important details, and Kill List is a blatant offender. Some things happen during the movie that will pique your interest strongly, yet very little is offered as an explanation for these things. Some movie fans adore this approach as it opens doors for their own interpretations, but I feel a little ripped off when a movie asks me to do the work it?s supposed to do and determine for myself the all-important question of ?what does it all mean??

That said, there?s still enough going on and a shocking enough ending where I was still very much intrigued by what had unfolded before my eyes. It made me think after seeing it, and I?m still thinking about it today?which must be a good sign. But if there are gaps in the story so unattended and blank than even your own deep pondering can?t get very close to some semblance of an answer, is it even worth watching to begin with?

Sadly, I do not have an answer for you.

There was a lot of things I very much liked about Kill List: it has a bit of a Nicolas Winding Refn vibe to it with some of the most brutally violent imagery I?ve ever seen put to film, and it even jumps genres faster than you ever expect it to, going from a drama to an action flick to a horror movie (yes, a horror!). But ultimately, for me anyway, there?s far too many things that I feel like I absolutely needed more answers to and did not get. With just a tad more information, this movie could have been an incredibly dark and pleasantly surprising film to watch, but as it sits it is only something of enigma, made to madden you with confusing contemplation.

Still, I can?t deter you from watching or not. In fact I encourage most (whom are strong of stomach and mind) to watch it themselves and see what they draw from it. Some will surely enjoy it for what it is while others will have just as many questions as I?if not more.

Oh if you venture through the door...
 
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Saw this a few days ago. Ryan Reynolds is a young CIA operative bored out of his mind as a keeper of a safe house. A legendary CIA agent, played by Denzel, who had gone off the reservation and thought to be a traitor is brought in for safe keeping and then all things go to hell. Nothing spectacular here but pretty good action and as is standard in these types of movies you are guessing about who is really who. Denzel is, well Denzel, and Reynolds was actually pretty good in the role of a young CIA agent who is in over his head and out of his element. Again not great but pretty solid for this type of movie.

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I was wary about this because it seemed to me that this might be the type of movie that is all hype fueled by hipsters and movie critics who love it simply because it is "so different!" But I had friends who said they enjoyed it and with it triumphing at Oscar night I felt it my duty to go see it for myself. I must say I really enjoyed it and found it engaging. I was sucked into the story and yeah, it being black and white and silent is "so different" but it is not simply a gimmick, it makes the movie what it is. Jean Dujardin is great and it seems as if he was made for this role, with his pencil 'stache he just looks those actors you think of from movies from those bygone days. B?r?nice Bejo is adorable and John Goodman and James Cromwell are solid. The dog is cool too. What was really different was the actual movie going experience itself. As a silent movie it has piano and orchestra music playing throughout and it is not overpowering like movie sound usually is, so you really can hear the sounds of other people in the theater. And I found myself trying to read lips in a lot of scenes, you don't need to but I found myself doing it anyway. It was a different experience and am glad I went.
 
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Caught this at 4 ish this morning...don't ask. Has anyone seen this??? What a tremendously awful idea. Lets make a slice of life/dark comedy based on a non-fiction book with some of the most disturbing information you will ever hear about the fast food you eat. Well acted and generally well done, but simply joyless and misery inducing. Note to Hollywood...not all multi-billion selling books need to be shoehorned into movie form.
 
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Stir of Echoes was a good flick, it's a mystery/thriller/horror about a man (Kevin Bacon) who gets hypnotized and ends up seeing the ghost of a missing girl. One of the better ghost story movies I've seen.

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House of the Devil is a nice little throwback to 70s/80s horror movies. A college girl takes on a babysitting job and winds up getting entangled in a satanic cult. Was pretty entertaining, and the lead actress (Jocelin Donahue) was ****ing hot.
 
Stir of Echoes rocks. Great little flick that deserves to be seen. Always like Kevin Bacon. House of...a little overrated. Not bad, but it's fairly simple and Ti West is a smug **********.

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Not sure where to start with this one. First off, it's a movie that is kind of hard to find. A very young Viggo Mortensen appears in it, so you know that if nobody capitalized on this then there must be a reason. Short sketch...'50's...family secrets...son back from war...widow who children are convinced is a vampire romances said returned soldier to the dismay of younger brother. OK. Then it just gets weird. How weird you ask? Well let's see...mummified baby fetus that lead child converses with(because he must be an angel), one armed/eyepatch wearing sherriff who is horribly inappropriate whilst asking said child if his father ever 'touched' him, roving pack of 'dime store hoods' who are predatory, pedophiliacal(???) and rapey...yet despite having the only apparent car in this mix of seperatists and amish ARE NEVER SUSPECTED, said widow fapping whilst 2 children observe from the shadows, same woman having sex(implied) while little brother watches(yet again from the shadows), some sort of attempt to tie in the horrors of the atom bomb with the vampire storyline...and many more. The movie ends in an artsy shot of the young child in a big field screaming in anguish at the heavens while the sun sets(multiple times).


So yeah, it's bad David Lynch by way of American Gothic. Yet...I have to say, it was fascinating enough that I think, if you can...you should see it.
 
Stir of Echoes rocks. Great little flick that deserves to be seen. Always like Kevin Bacon. House of...a little overrated. Not bad, but it's fairly simple and Ti West is a smug **********.

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Not sure where to start with this one. First off, it's a movie that is kind of hard to find. A very young Viggo Mortensen appears in it, so you know that if nobody capitalized on this then there must be a reason. Short sketch...'50's...family secrets...son back from war...widow who children are convinced is a vampire romances said returned soldier to the dismay of younger brother. OK. Then it just gets weird. How weird you ask? Well let's see...mummified baby fetus that lead child converses with(because he must be an angel), one armed/eyepatch wearing sherriff who is horribly inappropriate whilst asking said child if his father ever 'touched' him, roving pack of 'dime store hoods' who are predatory, pedophiliacal(???) and rapey...yet despite having the only apparent car in this mix of seperatists and amish ARE NEVER SUSPECTED, said widow fapping whilst 2 children observe from the shadows, same woman having sex(implied) while little brother watches(yet again from the shadows), some sort of attempt to tie in the horrors of the atom bomb with the vampire storyline...and many more. The movie ends in an artsy shot of the young child in a big field screaming in anguish at the heavens while the sun sets(multiple times).


So yeah, it's bad David Lynch by way of American Gothic. Yet...I have to say, it was fascinating enough that I think, if you can...you should see it.

That sounds kind of awesome.
 
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David And Lisa - Keir Dullea plays a teenager admitted to a special school because he has an OCD-type mental illness that causes him to freak out whenever anyone makes any kind of physical contact with him. He's very smart and an anti-social prick, but that eases up a bit when he meets Lisa, a schizophrenic young lady that will only talk in rhyme. He becomes interested in Lisa and starts talking back to her in rhyme, slowly beginning a friendship that helps them both deal with their respective illnesses.

Excellent movie. It's a bit slow, but the acting is great, the cinematography is great and the story is really, really nice. Even though David is a prick for most of the movie, you don't really dislike him because Dullea did such a good job showing the illness. I'd never heard of Janet Margolin and after watching this was sad to see that she really didn't do much of note beyond this other than small roles in a couple Woody Allen movies and in Ghostbusters II. She was really, really good. I was also really sad to read that the cinematographer, Leonard Hirschfield hadn't done much else because there was some seriously beautiful work in this.

The only issues I had with the movie were the score, which was way too over the top and distracting at times, and there were a couple parts that were a little melodramatic. Otherwise, I really liked this movie a lot. Would buy.

EDIT: Ok, so apparently Janet Margolin died in 1993 of cancer. That sucks.
 
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This flick was pretty entertaining, not sure why so many people hated it. The Dark is a ghost story about a mother trying to find her missing daughter in a house tainted by a horrible history. Nothing groundbreaking or original, just entertainment.
 
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Decided to take a break from all the B-list horror flicks and actually watch a good film. A Separation won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Film this year, so I was very excited to see it. The film is fantastic. Extremely well crafted with a great intricate story and top notch direction. I definitely want to see more films from Farhadi.

Okay, back to watching horror lol
 
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Now THAT'S what I'm talking about!!! Released in America as Point Blank this French thriller has it all in spades. One of the best crime/suspense/thriller flicks I've seen in recent memory. It grabs you and doesn't let go until the credits roll, and was so absorbing that the 90 or so minutes felt more like 40. I won't bother explaining the plot, but rather say that if you haven't seen it already I highly recommend hitting it on Netflix streaming this weekend--and grab the popcorn for this one.
 
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Pointless and mostly bloodless. Useless. First off, from now on when I read uncensored/uncut/unrated on a dvd I will substitute 'we didn't even have to run this by anyone'. Just a severe by the numbers affair with ridiculous plot twists, bad acting and lame kills. Say what you will about Eli Roth's first two, there were moments in both where you really got a little sick at what happened to the characters. This is simply a cash in.

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This is much better. A horror anthology with sex as the main theme. Like all anthologies some parts are better than others. The first story is a little too on the nose and overly simple. An abusive rich couple abuse a homeless woman...who isn't what she appears to be. Not bad, just not enough there. The second story concerns nazis, giant penii that constantly ooze spunk, said spunk being collected to make a new prescription drug...and much more. Wraps up a little too easily without giving you some much needed explanations, but creepy and well acted enough to make it REAL interesting. The last story is the best though. A man with a girlfriend who humiliates him gets his revenge. Simple...yes, but there is more to it than that. And, once again...the acting is really good for an indy film. If you are looking for something different, seek this one out.
 
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I was thinking about watching Hostel 3 for ****s and giggles but yea, after reading your review I'm gonna stay away from it. I kind of figured it would suck since Eli Roth didn't direct it.

Thanks for the recommendation Blotto, I'll definitely be watching that movie soon.
 
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We chose this Greek film knowing absolutely nothing about it, and wondered for at least the first 30 minutes "what the f*** is this supposed to be????" It was truly bizarre--and morbidly captivating in it's strangeness. It's quiet, slow, and they tell you nothing at all, which I think adds to the desire to understand who, and why, and what this is ultimately leading up to. As the characters slowly become more vocal and defined, the underlying scenario reveals itself and it all comes into focus. By the time we actually "got it" we were deep into it. I don't want to give up anything, but just to say we loved it in the end--which unsurprisingly was also pretty wtf. VERY different than anything we've seen lately--domestic OR foreign language. Highly recommended as art, but you'll need to be in a very patient state of mind to get through it.
 
You should have seen it with a twitchy nervous audience...including a guy who laughed 'Cape Fear/DeNiro' style at some of the more uncomfortable awkward moments.
 
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So I had a few hours to kill the other day and I figuered "what the hell". This movie is billed as having real life Navy SEALs basically playing themselves portraying missions inspired by true events. This movie has recieved various criticisms from movie reviewers and most of it is legit. You can tell who are "real" actors are in this movie. The SEALS are good in the action scenes but otherwise are a bit stiff and wooden in thier "acting" scenes.

Some critics have called this a really long and expensive recruiting video and one can see why they would. It does have that feel.

Some have complained that it " does not show the complexity of war" and it is "one dimensional". What I suspect what they really mean is that it irks them that the SEALS are portrayed as noble warriors and the terrorists & narco thugs they go after are portrayed as scum of the earth. I guess they were expecting a scene where there would be deep soul searching conversation about why terrorists are terrorists and what did we do to make them terrorists. But in fairness to the movie it is not dealing with the overall situation of global terrorism or national foreign policies: it simply is a movie showing how SEALS operated on a few related combat missions. But yeah, ok, it does have the "USA, USA, USA!!" feel to it.

What is cool is the action scenes. Showing how SEALS get in and do what they do was interesting. HALO jumps, silently moving though rugged terrain in the dark, operating state of the art surveillance drones, setting up a sniper team and then hitting an enemy so quick and so hard that the poor bastards don't know what hit them. You don't want to be on the receiving end of a SEAL operation that is for sure, those guys flat out **** people up.

Would I recommend it? No, not really, for all the reasons mentioned above. But if you want to see a few good action scenes and see how the SEALS do what they do then rent it one day.
 
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