On the couch

There was a time when Kill List was brilliant. A really ingenious story with a great twist, nerve-wrecking build-up and a hefty dollop of tension spread evenly throughout its 90-odd minutes.
It’s hard to say when this time actually was but, sadly it had well passed before the cameras actually started rolling and definitely long gone before the editing process began.
Best guess would place the moment of Kill List’s creative zenith some where around the sung of director Ben Wheatley’s local and the time at roughly half past closing.
Through a fog of his and his mate’s favourite tipple he laid out his plan for a story, a dark and seedy film that would call to mind all the best of British cinema from years gone by. The Wickerman would be referenced and any number Hammer Horrors of course. More modern fare wouldn’t be forgotten though, with the influence of The Descent, Dead Man’s Shoes and The Disappearance of Alice Creed all being thrown into the mix.
What is it about the best laid plans?
While Wheatley’s tale of a down-at-heel mercenary with a violent past and a short fuse coaxed into a contract killing job is still head and shoulders above a lot of action dross produced for ten times its budget, Kill List is a frustrating mess that will shock viewers as much with its plot as with how confusing and disjointed it gets towards the end.
The film opens with Jay (Neil Maskell, pictured) at fighting over money with his wife, Shel (MyAnna Buring). It quickly becomes apparent that a) this isn’t the first time they pair have squabbled over this sort of thing and b) Jay’s talents sure don’t lie in diplomacy or accountancy.
At a dinner party latter with his best friend Gal (Michael Smiley) and his new girlfriend Fiona (Emma Fryer) it becomes apparent that the last job the two were on, in Kiev, went badly. The mental scars from previous jobs in Iraq and the North of Ireland are also still raw and tempers flare abruptly.
To this point the flick is excellent. Tense, well acted and hinting at all sorts of past pain and impending agony.
Once the prospect of a new job is broached, however, things start to get strange and the two head out on the road to do some contract killing for some nameless suits of questionable morals. It quickly becomes clear that, while Gal is apparently a nice guy with a horrible job, Jay has a violence and darkness inside him that marks him out as a potentially Very Bad Man.
Up till this point, however, things are still going well for the audience. Violent and disturbing, Kill List is nothing short of riveting, well-acted and, most importantly, comprehensible.
Unfortunately it takes a sharp left off Making Sense Road and screeches down the Insanity Turnpike for its final third and the goodwill the first hours earns it is all that will keep many in their seats.
To say the switch from gritty thriller to mask-wearing, things-that-go-bump-in-the-night horror is jarring is as gross an understatment as calling the findings of the Mahon Tribunal “a little light reading”.
Not that the final third isn’t great craic in its own way – it is. It just doesn’t belong to the rest of the film. It’s not quite finishing Finding Nemo with a gun battle, but it’s bloody close.
Weird tonal shift and garbled storyline aside, Kill List is still a film worth seeing. There isn’t a bad performance in it and the sense of gritty realism – for the first two thirds anyway – mark Wheatley and his cast out as a folk to keep an eye on in the future.
Watch, enjoy, probably keep the lights on while you’re doing so.