Within the first two minutes of the alarmingly mediocre art farce/crime caper mash up The Kill Room, director Nicol Paone’s images slaps the visage and fell of mid ‘90s to early 2000s crime noir films cemented in then newfound tough guy rehashes spawned from the creative homages of Roger Avary and Quentin Tarantino. Back then, the tough talking ‘70s gritty “action-sploitation” flicks were the rocket fuel funneling through the “old is new again” Clinton-era cinematic escapist offerings. Bad guys went toe to toe with worse guys, solving their grievances with monologues and high body counts while snazzy grooves permeated through licensed soundtracks, adding to the nostalgia of men’s men doing manly things. The only problem with this particular revelatory moment is that the film that follows isn’t necessarily that kind of film. The Kill Room, for all intents and purposes, presents itself as something else, doing its best to blend between every woman “come up” comedy, tough talking gangster farce and crime caper. It doesn’t actually succeed as it just “finishes”, leaving behind a faded carbon copy of better things with interesting ideas, trite representation and a wish for better for star and producer Uma Thurman.
In The Kill Room, Thurman portrays “down on her luck” art gallery owner Patrice Capullo. Strapped for cash, Capullo decides to run a money laundering scheme through her gallery with a Yiddish mob hitman handler Gordon Davis (Samuel L. Jackson being forced to add as many “motherfuckers” to his career’s body count). Davis utilizes the skills of Reggie Pitt (Joe Manganiello) to create paintings that interested parties buy as payment to have hits put out on rival gang members. Pitt is the painter AND the hitman doing the jobs. After Capullo’s assistant, Leslie (Amy Keum) goes against her bosses wishes ad nauseam, Pitt’s works become a big deal in the art scene as everyone wants to own a piece of work from the new wunderkind going by the aptly pseudonym “The Bagman”. The trouble starts when the bosses of Davis and Pitt feel that the heightened celebrity of The Bagman may bring too much heat to their organization, pushing Capullo to work with Pitt to save them both.
Thurman does her best to hold this film together. She radiates throughout, no matter how unscrupulous her character’s arcs are. She handles each moment with presence and verve, never batting an eye when she has to have self-imposed debilitating small talk with a rival gallery owner with cream smattered on her nose (unknowingly of course), or when she cowers in fright after getting high and surmising what Pitt’s real occupation is. She’s all there and that’s good for her. A better film would utilize her talents very well. Jackson seems to be having fun with his fellow Tarantino alum, gleefully phoning in a soundbite collection’s worth of expletives that must have made the crew giggle uncontrollably up until the call to cut. Along with another weird hair prosthetic that you could only guess was glued onto his chin as an attempt at being comical, there’s nothing of note to see here from Jackson. If he wasn’t already a legend, it would have been a low point. Rounding out the leads is Manganiello, whose portrayal as Pitt is clearly indicative of the talent wasted while slapping this fever pitch of a film together. Manganiello approaches Pitt with nuance and gives enough undercurrent to his character that you want more of his back story and moments of exploring how his “work” influences his “art.”
Screenwriter Johnathan Jacobson never gets us there, instead shifting gears into a lazy, expletive-laden crime comedy that only succeeds in wiping out any dramatic beats presented during the film’s first half. Paone seems to be tugging on the reins of the sporadic narrative as much as possible. By the film’s end, you feel as if she wants it to all be over just as much as you do. The Kill Room crash-lands into its credits, leaving behind a quick case of “what if” and “what could have been” before disappearing from memory. Unfortunately, whatever was there didn’t materialize cohesively on screen, leaving a muddled and misshapen piece of work for fatigued viewers to behold.
Photo courtesy of SHOUT! STUDIOS / Blue Fox Entertainment
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