Killers (US Dir-Mike Mendez) aka Real Killers Look beyond a bunch of bad acting & blatant derivitives of Quentin Tarantinos early work, and stick with this stone cold indie gem which gets more & more unpredictable by the minute. Killers aka Real Killers is in no way perfect & many will find the derivitives, constant profanity, flashing images & the acting ranging from plain imitation to sheer incompetence repellant! However the impression i got from Killers was that it was actually intended to be a deadpan parody of the Crime films of the day. The villian looks & acts like Mickey Rourke & Keifer Sutherlands love child who says that the best thing about Free Willy was Michael Madsen smoking ciggerettes & not owning a Mickey Rourke movie is a crime! :D The constant references to pop culture of the day suggests that this film is intended to be a Satire on the films being made about celebrity criminals(Natural Born Killers) & the state of the media itself which at the time was still reeling from the OJ Simpson trial. What begins as a Christmas Eve set home invasion Thriller along the lines of Desperate Hours turns into an Texas Chainsaw Massacre style situation as the family taken hostage reveal they are far crazier than they initially appear. Thats just the midway point however & as stated the film gets more unpredictable as it progresses, turning from Thriller to Horror with the introduction of a Mongaloid ladyboy & a horde of Zombies. Killers is full of heavy violence, nudity & profanity, but while its tempting to think that all these elements were in place to appeal to a particular market, the film definetly feels alot more like a comment on the very market that would eat it up the more one watches it. The film & its characters never strain for cool like many Tarantino-esque films do, while the dark atmosphere created by director Mike Mendez can only be applauded. The film is incredibly tense from the outset & while there are a few humourous touches later in film, director Mendez never loses his grip on the viewer no matter how crazy the film becomes later on. Finally the score that drives the film is perfectly married to the visuals & on screen action, delivering the required drones & the heavier rock for the action sequences. Cops, Criminals, Crazies, Cannibals & ALOT of Corpses....Killers is by no means a classic or even great but as 90s indies indebted to Quentin Tarantino go, this is indeed VERY GOOD! Here is the full movie.....ENJOY! :) youtube/watch?v=jLplKEiVsjA&feature=youtube_gdata_player
Posted on: Wed, 26 Mar 2014 05:01:10 +0000