Dark, black night

Killshot

(2008)

Here's a mystery. No, not the film: it's a pretty good crime story based on an Elmore Leonard novel, a pretty good one. The mystery is that a pretty good film based on a pretty good Elmore Leonard novel, produced by the Weinsteins, with a very good cast and directed by an A-lister, seems to have gone, if not quite straight to video, then close to it, opening on 5 screens last January and closing after week 2 with a U.S. gross of $17K. Here is the most convincing account I've found, though I take exception to the scathing treatment of Gordon-Levitt, whose manic stupidity I found consistent with the character Leonard created, and Dawson, whose performance, not to mention her crater-faced makeup job, I found quite brave for a glamour girl.

I suppose one can quibble about how persuasive an Indian Mickey Rourke makes, but there's no gainsaying that, as in the novel, we are confronted with an ostensibly empty-souled death machine whose humanity we nonetheless can't ignore and can't fail to respond to. And if there's anyone better than Diane Lane at conveying I-don't-think-I-love-you-anymore-but-I'm-not-absolutely-certain, I don't know who it might be.

Great film? Nah. Better than dozens and dozens that get far better treatment from their studios every year? Oh, hell yeah. But don't take my word for it; rent the friggin' thing and see what Hollywood geniuses consider fit for the slag heap.