 Kill Me Later (2001) Kill Me Later stars Selma Blair, whose fame is entirely dubious, as a depressive who agrees to help a bank robber escape his botched heist if he promises to kill her when it's done. With that kernel of an idea, the filmmakers contrive a series of situations as forced as can be, and having built a foundation from bullshit, they proceed to build a house upon it. Also made of bullshit. The direction tries to be "cool," but it's in the same way that those wimpy hipster types try to build up their coolness muscles by getting into, like, Wu Tang Clan or Bruce Lee. No amount of tough-guy bullshit is going to make your shit cool if it isn't naturally. Loaded with arbitrarily "cool" jumpcuts and odd framings, the film seems like the work of someone who taught themselves filmmaking by getting high and watching True Romance and/or 1994-era MTV. More and more, I want to ask another generation whether I can join theirs instead. Mine's too busy trying to prove how COOL it is to just be itself and hang out. The "black" sense of humor is totally hollow; the characterizations shallow (Selma smokes two cigarettes at once! Isn't that QUIRKY!?!), the writing simply bad, and the performances deadening. It's a great example of why indie film is consistently more bad than good. No more movies like this, please. Can't the government institute a program wherein people would have to qualify to be able to make movies? I think Red China may have had the right idea after all. The makers of this film ought to be executed in the night and dropped in a cavern on the Mongolian border, along with every print of Kill Me Later, then erased from all public records, swiped from history. That wouldn't make me feel much better, but it would be just.
Review by Phil Dominoe |
