Saturday, 19 June 2010

"Killers"

We went to see this film for my early Father's Day thingy. Superficially, it is a cross between 'Mr & Mrs Jones' and 'Meet the Fokkers', but actually it was one of the darkest and most sinister films I have seen for ages. The fact that the plot was nonsensical to the point of parody neither adds to nor detracts from that.

Highlights:

1) Katherine Heigl using the f-word a few minutes before the end. Apart from that there was plenty of violence but no swearing or nudity.

2) One NIMBY neighbour complaining about the hero's fence being a few inches too far over into their garden and another NIMBY neighbour complaining about the fact that the hero had wrecked his own garage.

3) The hero resigns his job as a hit man (quite for whom is not clear) when he meets his true love and sets up his own construction company. Business tails off a bit so he has to go back to his old job killing people.

4) The car chase scenes in which they tear through, and tear up, a newly built and still vacant housing estate. The hero finally kills the bad guy by shunting his car over a wall. In the background are some half built timber frame houses and a construction site. It struck me that this was not a carefully built set - it was in fact one of the many hundreds of ghost estates left over after the US house price bubble burst that the film people snapped up cheaper than they could have built it themselves. Very dark.

5 comments:

Steven_L said...

They probably snapped it up from the Fed who just wanted rid of the half built houses that the dodgy debt they took as security was secured on.

To help prop up the rest of the dodgy debt they took onto their balance sheet.

That's a bit cynical for 12:30am Sunday morning isn't it?

JuliaM said...

Must catch that on Sky. The MSM reviews have been dismissive which usually means it's worth a look.

Tim Almond said...

Swearing's funny in terms of certification. Hot Fuzz was (according to the director's commentary) allowed one c**t. If they had 2, it would have to be an 18.

Conversely, some movies throw a s**t in just to elevate a movie to a 12A because they know that some audiences (like teenagers) won't go and see PGs.

Mark Wadsworth said...

S_L, that's what I assume. We see loads of pictures of abandoned new housing estates in the USA or in Ireland, and these estates looked exactly like that.

JM, I also make it a rule to watch films which get bad reviews. I bought The Lad 'Avatar' on DVD a month ago and so far have resolutely refused to watch it.

JT, that may be true, but this film was broadly a rom-com, so we'll have to assume that even they need something more than a PG or 12 rating.

Anonymous said...

Is that what that film is called? Saw the poster for it at the theater and had no idea what the translation was. Do remember absolutely not buying the idea of Ashton Kutcher knowing anything at all about firearms. Happy father's day.