KILLING TIME (1998)

So there's this big crime boss guy who resembles a young T.S. Eliot who opens up the movie with a big speech on the link between genius and sexual depravity.  As any student of rhetoric will teach you, it's a fallacy to assume that if A=B, then B=A.
Somehow this guy comes to the conclusion that he's a genius because as he charmingly puts it, "I can only come when someone else dies."  Of course, he says this right before killing someone.  The someone turns out to be a cop, and his partner, Bryant, in retaliation, hires an Italian hitwoman (Kendra Torgan) to take out the big crime boss.  As it turns out,  Bryant can't afford to pay the hitwoman so he bullies a group of two bit hoods (led by George, a menacing looking Ian McLaughlin) into bumping off the hitwoman after she's made the hit. The hitwoman shows up, blows away everyone at the big crime boss guy's antique store except the big crime boss guy who's doublecrossing guys and taking their money out at Newcastle.  She manages to find out when the crime boss is coming back, then goes back to kill time until T.S. Eliot returns.  Kendra Torgan as the Italian hitwoman is good, and even gets naked briefly for a welcome, but utterly gratuitous, bit.

So here's the deal; most of the movie takes place in a poorly designed set of a hotel room where the thugs come one by one to kill off the hitwoman.  The hitwoman, in between taking a bath, listening to instructional tapes and listening to tunes, dispatches all the witless thugs one by one.  Ergo, the opening title.  While the thugs sit around and wait to hear back from whichever one they've sent off to do the hitwoman in, Bryant and his partner investigate the antique store killing, which rapidly becomes a debate about character when Bryant's partner quickly figures out that Bryant's involved.  Lotta talking, lotta waiting.  In the end, more violence, a clever twist, and a final shot so long and boring I stopped paying attention three times before it ended.  Apart from the charisma of Kendra, the best thing about the movie is the Portishead song that they use twice (get the most for your money, I guess).  I'm listening to it now, in fact; if nothing else, I owe Killing Time a debt for making me break out my copy of Dummy again (and allow me to recommend it to you all out there).

Talk, talk, talk, with a little of the feelgood violence thrown in.  Nothing wrong with that, of course, but so much of the talk works way too hard to be quick and clever without really succeeding.  And the action scenes really aren't filmed that well, and the movie is edited badly and the set design, as I think I've mentioned, is lame.  Most of this I'm willing to forgive, but the end credits have a quote at the end from Jean Luc Godard; "all it takes to make a movie is a girl and a gun."  A low-budget film should be celebrated for being done at all, of course, but I think it's sensible to leave the pat on the back for others to give.  And that seems to be the problem with Killing Time in general; like people that are clever but not as clever as they think they are, this movie wears on the nerves a bit.  I watched the Glimmer Man between the first and second halves of this movie and if nothing else, this movie makes that one's lack of pretension look admirable. As a toss-up, I'd still recommend Killing Time before the Glimmer Man (although it would take me an hour and a half to construct the whole lamentable desert island scenario necessary to justify such a recommendation) if for no other reason than this is a great example of what to do wrong--and right--if making a low budget movie.

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All written material on these pages is © 1997 by Jeff Lester. With the exception of non-profit distribution, all other rights are reserved.