Sunday, January 05, 2025

Movie review - "Kiss or Kill" (1997) ****

 I watched this after seeing some later period Bill Bennett movies - The Nugget, In a Savage Land, Uninhabited - and the difference is remarkable. This has so much energy, certainty. It gets off to a flying start: girl sees mother immolated - bam - girl grown up meets sleazy man, fight, seduction, man assaults her, collapses, drugged, they rob him, he's dead, there's a tape of a footballer and a kid. Bam, bam, bam.

Much is marvellous. Support characters like Max Cullen and Barry Otto and the team of Gilbert and Haywood. The slob black tracker (John Clarke) asking for more money. The locations. The lack of music score.

Lead roles are dynamic. Matt Day is a little "hey I'm playing this  as angry and I'm not normally cast like that hey". He's totally fine as is Frances O'Connor.

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