Kill Me Later (2001)

User Rating:

6.0/10   

Director:

Dana Lustig

Writers:

Dana Lustig (story) &
Annette Goliti Gutierrez (story) ...

Release Date:

14 September 2001 (USA)

Genre:

Romance | Thriller | Crime | Drama

Tagline:

Not every hostage wants to be saved!

Plot:

Her goldfish dead, her lover exposed as a rat, Shawn Holloway leaves her bank post and goes to the roof intent on suicide...

Plot Keywords:

Police | Bank Robber | Hostage | Bridge | Motorcycle

Cast

Selma Blair	...	Shawn Holloway
Max Beesley	...	Charlie Anders
O'Neal Compton	...	Agent McGinley
Lochlyn Munro	...	Agent Reed
D.W. Moffett	...	Mathew Richmond
Brendan Fehr	...	Billy
Tom Heaton	...	Jason
David Adams	...	Ara
Alex Zahara	...	Officer Larry
Keegan Connor Tracy	...	Heather (as Keegan Tracy)
Pam Hyatt	...	Lucy
Stacy Fair	...	Elizabeth Richmond
Marcel Maillard	...	Lyle Holloway
Keith Gordey	...	Elevator Cop (as Keith Gordy)
Dana Lustig	...	Suzan Holloway

Also Known As:

Take My Life (USA) (working title)

MPAA:

Rated R for some language.

Runtime:

89 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital

Certification:

Spain:13 | Iceland:12 | Netherlands:12 | Argentina:13 | Australia:M | Norway:15 | USA:R

Filming Locations:

Los Angeles, California, USA

Company:

Curb Entertainment

Goofs:

Revealing mistakes: As Shawn and Charlie are escaping, Shawn turns the wheel to the left, as the car is turning right.

Quotes:

Shawn Holloway: You wanna know my dream? It's a beautiful dream; to be cremated.

Underdeveloped script & direction sink film

Kill Me Later" has an interesting initial premise: a suicidal woman (Selma Blair) on the verge of jumping off the top of an office building is protects a bank robber (Max Beesley) who promises to "kill her later."

The actual execution of this premise, however, falls flat as almost every action serves as a mere device to move the plot toward its predictable conclusion. Shoddily written characters who exhibit no motive for their behaviors compromise the quality of acting all around. Lack of character depth especially diminishes Selma Blair's performance, whose character Shawn vacillates from being morose to acting "cool" and ultimately comes across as a confused dolt. This is unfortunate, as under other circumstances Ms. Blair is an appealing and capable actress.

Compounding matters for the worse is director Dana Lustig's insistence on using rapid cuts, incongruous special effects (e.g. look for an unintentionally hilarious infrared motorcycle chase at the end), and a hip soundtrack in the hopes of appealing to the short attention spans of the MTV crowd. Certainly Ms. Lustig proves that she is able to master the technical side of direction, but in no way does her skill help overcome the film's inherent problems and thus the movie drags on to the end. Clearly, Lustig has a distinct visual style; however it is perhaps better suited to music videos than to feature film.

The producers (Ram Bergman & Lustig)can be commended for their ability to realize this film: they were able to scare up $1.5 million to finance the film, secure a good cast, and get domestic and foreign distribution. This is no small feat for an independent film. Yet given the quality of the product, the result is a mixed bag.