Nightkill

A very murky thriller. On the first viewing, I swear you won't be able to tell what's going on until....the last five minutes or so. This may be one of those mysteries that require a second viewing to fully understand how everything adds up. Good acting, though, both by Robert Mitchum, as a cunning detective, and by Jacklyn Smith, who's quite convincing as a woman involved in an increasingly threatening situation, with nobody to rely on in the whole world. (**)

Nightkill was going to be the breakout feature film debut for Jaclyn Smith of Charlie's Angels. It wound up being quite a bit less than that and not even making it to the big screen. Smith is joined by two television series veterans, Mike Connors of Mannix and James Franciscus of Mr. Novak. And of course big screen legend Robert Mitchum who hadn't been involved in a scare film like this since Cape Fear.

Smith is most unhappily married to Mike Connors who is a tyrannical tycoon. But she is having an affair with Connors's number two Jim Franciscus. One fine day with both all three at the spaciou home that Connors and Smith have, Franciscus slips some poison into Connors's drink and he dies. What to do with the body?

After what is done with it, it's Franciscus's corpse that Smith finds where they had stored Connors. And now there is a police detective played by Mitchum poking around in a most officious like manner, almost like he understudied the Peter Falk school of plodding detective work.

You might think you know where this is going, but I assure you that you don't. It gets real terrifying for Jaclyn Smith as she doesn't know who to trust or believe.

The spacious vistas of Phoenix, Arizona were not properly used in the cinematography of Nightkill. Mitchum doesn't come in until some 35 minutes after the film begins, but a few flecks of those famous rumpled eyelids and he's dominating the proceedings from then on.

NIghtkill is not the greatest of mystery thrillers, but it's reasonably entertaining for those who will want to empathize with what Smith is going through.

The movie is appropriately named, "Nightkill", because it is so darkly filmed that the daylight scenes, which are not many, seem like night, and the nighttime scenes will literally leave you in the dark. Since the plot twists and turns, it would be nice to actually see what is going on. Basically, Jaclyn Smith is unwittingly drawn into a complex murder plot, involving her tyrant, millionaire husband, Mike Connors. Once her lover, James Franciscus, does the killing, nothing is explained, and the audience is left to blindly follow what is happening. Personally, I lost interest until the relentlessly downbeat ending. Despite the presence of Robert Mitchum, and some decent acting, technically the film is seriously flawed. - MERK

Nightkill is a thriller starring the late great industry veteran Robert Mitchum, but it certainly isn't among his best work.

It tells the story of a woman who witnesses her new lover murder her abusive husband and the chain of events that follow. With her lover now missing and the police closing in what does she do next?

Lead by Jaclyn Smith this thriller never really gets going and the twist was more than expected. Though the finale is less predictible and quite enjoyable the rest of the movie is highly generic stuff.

It's certainly not terrible, but it's underwhelming stuff that you'll have seen plenty of times before. Even Mitchum seems bored.

The Good:

Robert Mitchum

The Bad:

Highly generic

Things I Learnt From This Movie:

White wine is for meatballs and cooking

In the 1980's no money was required to get yourself a plane seat reserved

Police officers use racial slurs casually

I really thought Nightkill was going to be lousy. A murder-gone-wrong movie in the '80s starring one of Charlie's Angels? I thought I'd turn it off after ten minutes, but after that time, I was hooked! Yes, Jaclyn's Smith's hairdo is dated, and a few scenes are a "tv-ish", but if you're one of the many people who enjoy this genre, you might want to check this one out.

The reason I kept watching Nightkill was because Jaclyn's marriage to Mike Connors wasn't your typical "evil husband must die" relationship. He's very wealthy, and he's not a nice person, but Joan Andre wrote his character to be subtly instead of blatantly cruel. He belittles their Mexican housekeeper, treats his subordinates like peons, and gets impatient with his wife. Everything he does and says, though, are things someone in his position might think is okay. He's not a blatant bad guy; he's just insensitive and rude. So, when Jaclyn's lover James Franciscus kills him, it's understandable that she's not jumping for joy. All she wanted was a divorce, not his death.

But, since she's now an accessory-and since she's the lead in an '80s thriller and therefore goes along with a terrible idea-Jaclyn agrees to hide the body and pretend her husband is still alive until she and James can run away together. Gee, do you think everything's going to go smoothly? Definitely not, especially when policeman Robert Mitchum starts sniffing around.

I'm sure you know why I rented this movie in the first place; we all know how much I love Robert Mitchum. He has such great energy in this movie, and I can't help but think he arranged for Michael Anderson, Jr. to have a cameo, since they played father and son twenty years earlier in The Sundowners.

One warning about Nightkill: make sure you have a strong stomach. Parts of the movie get pretty gruesome, to counteract the good looks of the three main leads, I guess. Also, if you liked seeing Jaclyn Smith and James Franciscus playing the Kennedys, you can see them together again in this movie!

Kiddy Warning: Obviously, you have control over your own children. However, due to gruesome images and an upsetting scene with an animal, I wouldn't let my kids watch it.