Kill List
2011
*½
Director: Ben Wheatley
Cast: Neil Maskell, Michael Smiley, MyAnna Buring, Emma Fryer, Harry Simpson, Ben Crompton, Struan Rodger
Ben Wheatley's muddled film is all over the place. It begins as a conventional English kitchen sink drama about a jobless former soldier who grows frustrated sitting idly at home with his wife and kid. When he and his partner/best friend accept an assignment to kill three men, it becomes a gritty but insanely violent crime drama. The outlandish final third turns it into a hallucinogenic occultist horror story. There are some subtle hints as to where the story is heading - the hit targets are oddly grateful - but nothing could prepare me for the incredibly stupid and highly unpleasant final fifteen minutes, which pretty much erase the memory of the passable first hour.
