Kill Me Later (2001)

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.

HITS AND MISFIRES

Directed by Dana Lustig. Written by Annette Goliti Gutierrez and Dana Lustig. Running time: 89 minutes. Classified R (for some language).

The premise sizzles with potential: a suicidal loan agent (Selma Blair) becomes the hostage of a bank robber (Max Beesley) who promises to kill her if she helps him escape. Kill Me Later could have been a winning dark comedy, a sleeper hit, and even earn a cult following -- but it never does full justice to the concept behind it. The first half-hour is highly entertaining: Shawn Holloway (Blair) is having an affair with her married boss, one of those guys who promises to leave his wife but never does. As he walks out of her apartment to go to work, she secludes herself in the bathroom and playfully slices her wrist with a razor; she smokes a few cigarettes and then heads off to work. Once there, she handles the case of a couple of newlyweds applying for a loan, and manages to scare them into backing out. She then learns that her boss's wife is pregnant and, seeing no point in going on living, goes up to the roof of the building and drowns her sorrows in a bottle of liquor. She stands on the edge of the building and is about to jump when she's abruptly pulled back by a masked figure. The man in the mask is Charlie Anders (Beesley), whose bank robbery has turned into a police chase, and whose decision to hold Shawn hostage by threatening to kill her backfires when he comes to the realization that this is precisely what she wants. Director Dana Lustig makes the wise decision of not focusing too much on the irony of the situation, and the few jokes that are made in reference to it are perfectly timed. The adrenaline keeps building for another ten minutes or so, and then things start to get iffy: a new subplot enters involving a pair of policemen on the trail of Charlie, and it only intrudes on what was once an intense thrill ride. Lustig makes an attempt at humanizing the cops and forcing us to like them, but what she doesn't understand is that all we really want to watch are Charlie and Shawn on the run. Beesley and Blair have great screen chemistry, and even though their characters are mere photocopies of the heroes from preceding action movies, they have genuine charm. And then Lustig makes her second mistake of turning Shawn and Charlie's personal lives into day-time dramas, at which point they become nothing more than caricatures. Kill Me Later is directed with a truly original style: the characters' dialogue continues smoothly while the shots cut between different takes of the actors delivering the lines, with just enough breaks in between each scene to avoid becoming nauseous. But the screenplay has an over-abundance of flaws, including a failed gag involving an obnoxious child, and an undeserved Hollywood ending. While walking away from the film, I had the same feeling I had after watching Luc Besson's over-rated Leon, which is that of missed opportunity. Yet for all of its misfires, Kill Me Later hits enough bull's-eyes to garner a viewing on a Friday night when you have nothing better to do.

*** - Good