Kill

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.

In our digital, high-tech world today, just about any chimp with a relatively inexpensive camera has the ability to go out and ape a tale in the vein of directing idols like Tarantino, Scorsese or, hell, Chris Columbus. And thank God most of these efforts are never seen by the majority of a viewing public. But 3 decades ago, one actually had to get a bit of funding to nab a star like James Mason or Jean Seberg. Quite a lot of moolah was needed up front to gather a competent crew and pay for exotic locales. So somebody please tell me what possessed "Superman"-producer Alexander Salkind to fund one dime on this absolutely incompetent, horridly amateurish production?

Since the story centers around the drug trade, one can only assume a lot of this substance crept up at the craft service table. How else can you explain the incoherent directing and Grade Z acting of this international production? In a nutshell, James Mason is a head hitman honcho for a global drug crime fighting unit, headed by the lumbering piece of granite known as actor Curd Jurgens. Mason methodically has shot down some of the world's leading drug kingpins for the safety of us all. Jean Seberg, acting like Ann Heche on a bad day outside Fresno, plays his bored wife who darts off to Pakistan and falls into the arms of the lumbering piece of petrified wood known as actor Stephen Boyd. Boyd is a renegade hitman, having severed his ties with the do-gooder crime unit, and is on a mission to route out a double agent within the organization. Based on this simple description alone, if you haven't figured out who the double agent is going to be, perhaps this movie's 110 minutes will keep you in suspense.

Director Romain Gary's pathetic work on this film renders it not only a bad movie, but unfortunately, one that does not improve with "Mystery Science Theater"-like derisive commentary as you sit and watch it. (I don't know, maybe MST has already tackled a version of this flick). The editing is so needlessly choppy, perhaps Salkind only gave Gary unexposed trims of five seconds to film this lackluster narrative. Supposedly shot in Spain, Tunisia, and Afghanistan, we never really know where the hell we are, because an establishing shot is rare, and relativity of any locale to the plot is even rarer. It just looks like the same dusty trail road being used over and over, and a backroom at a Spanish studio being redressed to look like a hotel suite, a safehouse, etc.

The acting is downright sad. When Stephen Boyd first encounters Seberg, he interrogates her by simply spinning her around and around under some low-level gel lights, causing her to get...a little dizzy? Gary has the actors scream at each other, directly into the lens, and the glazed, wide-eyed hamming they do at the camera makes you want to jump out of the chair and go slap their agent, or their manager, somebody! Boyd, in particular, appears so depressed to be in this car crash of a film. Unshaven and wearing an all-leather outfit, he morosely behaves like Jim Morrison hanging over the balcony on Sunset Boulevard after dropping some bad peyote. On the flipside, James Mason doesn't say much in his early scenes, and I started to think, "thankfully he had the smarts to know to cut his own lines so he won't come off as horrendously as the others." But, oh, no, Jimmy starts barking the dismal dialogue about 20 minutes in, and one only hopes he had a decent guest house on location in Kabul or wherever the hell he was dragged to, to compensate for how bad he comes off in the film.

I cannot effectively describe the ineptitude and lack of talent displayed in this movie. My jaw literally dropped open in stupefaction several times. The only person that comes away from this compost heap of celluloid somewhat unscathed is ace stunt driver Remy Juliene who does what little he can to enliven the halfway mark with a typical (but needless, plotwise) car chase across the Afghani wasteland. The movie's finale reaches a pinnacle of laughability and dumbstruck awe when several individuals engage in a shootout. The whole thing is staged like Monty Python's hilarious tennis bloodbath sketch lampooning Sam Peckinpah films. And a fantasy sequence showing an ascension to heaven and hell has got to be seen to be believed. Conceived by technical advisor "Frank Fantasia", I simply slipped off the sofa convulsing with laughter, along with a sense of horror realizing people actually sat in a screening room somewhere and said, "Oh yeah, Frank, that sums it up. That's great!"

Even a one star rating would not convey how awful this movie is, so my rating: 0 out of ****.

This movie is not for everyone, but I think it is a 70's classic. Directed by Romain Gary, and starring his wife Jean Seberg (just after her nervous breakdown), this is a strange, dreamlike, bizarre film. There are some great moments in this film- sort of a cross between a spaghetti western, ClockWork Orange and Performance. Jean Seberg herself is perfectly cast in this as the bored housewife Emily looking for a thrill--and off to Pakistan (well, OK it was filmed in Spain) she goes! The renegade she meets, Brad Killian (name obviously in reference to his dedicated profession of killing every drug runner he can find), is played by the wonderful Stephen Boyd. In his leather-clad outfit and wild hair, he makes for a great anti-hero as he seduces Emily, and turns the cards on her husband, played by the excellent James Mason. The music is amazing, and there are a host of classic Italian character actors in this flick as the bad guys. Oh, and Curd Jergens shows up too! It's a great 70's trip - I highly recommend this if you can track it down on IOFFER.

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.