Kill List (www.the-usher.com)

After botching a job almost a year earlier, Jay (Maskell) was running low on money and tensions were running high between him and his wife Shel (Buring). When his friend Gal (Smiley) offers him a way back in, Jay jumps at the chance to be involved again and make amends for his previous mistake. Given a ‘Kill List’ by the client (Rodger), Jay and Gal set off but as they make they first hit, the pair notice that his is no ordinary job.

Every year there can be a buzz around a low budget film that makes critics and audiences a like stand up and take notice but does ‘Kill List’ deserve that attention?

After appearing at many an independent film festival and creating a lot of Internet chatter and early critical acclaim, director Ben Wheatley’s ‘Kill List’ gained a limited release at the cinema and a cult British film was made, or so you would have hoped. Even with a barrage of big name, well-respected critics championing in the film and a loyal, cult following online, the question still has to be asked. Is the film actually that good and deserving of all the praise been thrown on it? The answer is a definite no.
This is a film that does not know what it wants to be. At the heart of the story is a domestic drama that revolves around a husband and wife who are growing apart due to financial problems and fact that Jay, the protagonist in this tale, is slowing becoming more and more unhinged. His problems stem from his lack of work after becoming un-hirable after botching a job almost a year earlier. With their savings running out and the pressure mounting on their relationship, Jay’s best friend Gal throws him a lifeline by bringing him in on a two man job, a Kill List. The plot then changes into a British Hit Man film, with Jay and Gal traveling around the area killing their targets in increasing gruesome and extremely violent ways. Of course, as with any film like this there has to be some kind of moral, a payback for the violence that Jay and Gal are handing out but the strange twist is that the people on the Kill List are thanking Jay for killing them. This is were the inevitable and much talked about twist comes in, a twist so shocking, according to some critics, that you will never see it coming. The problem is that its execution is not original or shocking but, without trying to give too much away, just trying to introduce a ‘Wicker Man’ like plot twist to provide that big shock.

The film was made with a low budget and it shows. Co-writer and director Ben Wheatley is been hailed as one of Britain’s up and coming new filmmakers but Kill List show no real invention or originality to justify this. While he does his best to bring out performances from his three key actors, Neil Maskell as Jay, MyAnna Buring as his wife Shel and Michael Smiley as Gal pushing improvisation, the film is lacking when it comes to production values. A lack of creativity with the camera and in the editing process makes the film look and feel like a low budget film when it really did not need to. With more creativity and more thought, we should have been taking a journey into the mind of Jay, seeing the world through his eyes and not just been an observer from too many fixed points.

‘Kill List’ tries too hard to be shocking and controversial in a vain effort to be come a cult sensation. While you can argue that both critically and via the Internet, it has succeeded, this does not mean that it deserves the all of the plaudits it has received. With a silly twist and uninventive filmmaking, ‘Kill List’ is nothing more than another British gangster film that is trying too hard to be different.

Commentary with Director Ben Wheatley and Writer Amy Jump
Commentary with Actors Neil Maskell, MyAnna Buring and Michael Smiley
Audio Description
Making Of Kill List
Interview with Ben Wheatley
Interview with Neil Maskell and MyAnna Buring
Interview with Claire Jones and Andrew Starke
Trailer

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2011