Sunday, April 14, 2013

Purgatory of a hitman












Kill List (2011)

Had this one on my shelf for quite some time before I ended up watching it. Heard some good things about it when it was playing on the festivals so decided to buy it but never got around to watch it. Then a friend of mine said I should watch it and the director Ben Wheatley's latest movie Sightseers (2012), and so I did. I really hate trying to describe the story of a movie like this which evolves from one thing to another and yet another. But as it's told in the back cover and in the trailer as well I guess you can't really avoid it and luckily there's more to this movie than just an intriguing story. The movie reminded me of The Wicker Man (1973) in quite a few ways. Obviously the last 15 minutes or so, but also the weird feeling of the movie and the tension building from the start to finish. Not to forget the surprisingly good dark comedy. Of course comparing this to one of my all time favourite horror movies is not exactly fair, but it actually holds on quite nicely by itself. The acting is also great, so there's many things right in this movie. But there are some problems, can't go into too much details to avoid spoiling it, it's the ending mostly and some of the events leading to it. I liked the idea of it, but the actions leading to it didn't seem to make much sense and especially the outcome was weirdly predictable but still didn't really seem to make any sense. I mean the movie clearly wants to leave something for the viewer to think about, but the thing is that more you give it some thought the more ridiculous it seems. Maybe this movie needs a second viewing to get the whole point of it. But wether it's unintentionally confusing or intentionally complex didn't matter that much as this movie plays with tension quite masterfully. It's after all easier to forgive the flaws of the plot if the movie works on an emotional level and this one worked quite well.
72%

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