Kill!

This movie has suspense action and love all rolled into one loop. An earlier Die Hard movie and this movie is a great emotion builder. The cream of the crop and do not listen to anybody else. Do not miss this movie because their are big stars of the time and did I mention action. Shootouts, interrogations, espionage.

I would not normally see a movie like this one but..... only to see Stephen Boyd. This was rather avant garde for it's time: gritty, ugly and a bit confusing at first but the story progresses nicely and we learn what drives our ant-hero. Stephen Boyd is at his very best. If made today, a film like this would probably get very good reviews. Ahead of its time, for sure with a blockbuster performance by Stephen.

According to IMDB, there were two versions of "Kill!", as they cut the nude scenes in one in order to get the film shown in more conservative countries. Surprisingly, the version they have on YouTube is the nude version. And, unlike the nudity in most films, it seemed completely gratuitous in many cases...with nude women in many scenes doing really nothing other than getting naked. It didn't in any way relate to the plot...I guess Romain Gary just liked seeing naked women.

I have no idea if Jean Seberg's nude scenes use a double or not...though considering the animosity that existed between her and the writer-director (they'd just divorced and reportedly did NOT want to make this film. I assume he probably insisted she do these scenes. Regardless, Gary seems to have put a lot of Jean's own life into her character...such as her being involved with African-American causes (showing this by putting an Afro wig on for no other apparent reason at the beginning of the movie) and her being dissatisfied with her much older husband in the story.

When the story begins, a big-time drug kingpin is inexplicably released by a judge....and most of Alan Hamilton's drug agents resign in protest. Hamilton (James Mason) remains on the job...and soon someone tries to kill him. At the same time, heroin dealers around the world are begin assassinated....and you assume Hamilton's ex-coworkers are behind this....or, perhaps Hamilton himself.

Now at this point, this is when things get weird. Hamilton's estranged wife (Seberg) begins having an affair with Brad (Stephen Boyd). She tells him she hates him and he's insane...but, inexplicably, is soon in the sack with this violent man. She still she sleeps with him...possibly because she craves the excitement. But soon he's killing people and acting very cruel....and he himself might be a heroin dealer or an ex-cop killing them...or both! What's next? See the film.

The general plot for this film is good...as are the twists and turns and surprises. It showed intelligent writing...at least in that regard. However, while Gary wrote a decent script, his directorial skills were very poor here....with the most over-indulgent ending I've seen in years. It's loud, brash and completely over-the-top....and detracts seriously from what could have been a much better film. A curious film...with an odd message that the best way to deal with drug dealers is to simply murder them!

Twice winner of the prix Goncourt ,Romain Gary was a very famous writer whose books were often transferred to the screen :"la promesse de l'aube" (two versions including one by Jules Dassin) , "les racines du ciel" ("the roots of Heaven " by John Huston),"la vie devant soi" (probably the best of Simone Signoret's latter days performances). He was less lucky in the cinema ;his first effort " les oiseaux vont mourir au Pérou"( featuring. Jean Seberg ,his then wife till 1970)got unanimous thumbs down ;his second work passed unnoticed in his native country although it did feature the strangest face of the French cinema (Daniel Emilfork ,unfortunately wasted ) along with a cosmopolitan cast . The intentions were good: drug-traffickers , helped by corrupt politicians , and mainly junkie kids ,a subject often passed over in silence (the movie begins with a strong indictment of drug addiction among children and of the political system of certain countries) . The treatment is heavy -handed : a lot of female nudity in a night club where the black owner sings the blues (totally irrevelant in that context) ,a risqué scene between Seberg and Boyd -outrageously made up in his first sequence as though he was featured in a horror movie ;the scene when Seberg removes the blanket to kiss her lover good morning and discovers a corpse with a banana in his mouth is guaranteed to net nothing but horselaughs;ditto for the final massacre , filmed in slow motion ,as it was often used in the early seventies .Editing is absurd ,and I dare you to catch up with this cock and bull screenplay. There must be a dead body a minute in this thriller, so if you can get an eyeful with the nude slaves in the club,do not expect any suspense : Seberg searching for her hotel in the night and living the perils of Pauline takes the biscuit .This clever feminist actress should have known better. Both Jurgens and Mason seem to wonder why they got involved in that business.

An absolutely dire thriller about an ex-Interpol agent turned assassin who tries to wipe out porn merchants and drug dealers in Pakistan. This is confusing, nasty and atrociously directed, with an extremely high death rate but little else. Stephen Boyd must have wondered what he had done wrong to go from the giddy heights of Ben Hur to this shambolic mess. As for James Mason, it's almost enough to make a grown man cry to see such a fine actor in such garbage.