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Kiss or Kill

  • 1997
  • 12
  • 1h 36m
IMDb RATING
6.3/10
1.5K
YOUR RATING
Kiss or Kill (1997)
After a robbery scam that goes bad, lovers Nikki and Al take off into the Australian outback, pursued by the police and a malevolent footballer named Zipper Doyle, and meet a number of offbeat characters.
Play trailer1:24
1 Video
54 Photos
CrimeDramaThriller

After a robbery scam that goes bad, lovers Nikki and Al take off into the Australian outback, pursued by the police and a malevolent footballer named Zipper Doyle, and meet a number of offbe... Read allAfter a robbery scam that goes bad, lovers Nikki and Al take off into the Australian outback, pursued by the police and a malevolent footballer named Zipper Doyle, and meet a number of offbeat characters.After a robbery scam that goes bad, lovers Nikki and Al take off into the Australian outback, pursued by the police and a malevolent footballer named Zipper Doyle, and meet a number of offbeat characters.

  • Director
    • Bill Bennett
  • Writer
    • Bill Bennett
  • Stars
    • Matt Day
    • Frances O'Connor
    • Tiffany Peters
  • See production info at IMDbPro
  • IMDb RATING
    6.3/10
    1.5K
    YOUR RATING
    • Director
      • Bill Bennett
    • Writer
      • Bill Bennett
    • Stars
      • Matt Day
      • Frances O'Connor
      • Tiffany Peters
    • 28User reviews
    • 32Critic reviews
  • See production info at IMDbPro
    • Awards
      • 12 wins & 11 nominations total

    Videos1

    Official Trailer
    Trailer 1:24
    Official Trailer

    Photos54

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    Top cast39

    Edit
    Matt Day
    Matt Day
    • Al Fletcher
    Frances O'Connor
    Frances O'Connor
    • Nikki Davies
    Tiffany Peters
    • Young Nikki
    Julie Wood
    Julie Wood
    • Nikki's Mother
    • (as Julie Sobotta)
    Syd Brisbane
    • Nikki's Father
    Geoff Revell
    • Paul Nathan
    Barry Langrishe
    Barry Langrishe
    • Zipper Doyle
    Eliza Lovell
    • Felicity
    Jordan Weldon-Iley
    • Young Boy
    Carmel Johnson
    Carmel Johnson
    • Hotel Regency Maid
    Chris Haywood
    Chris Haywood
    • Detective Hummer
    Andrew S. Gilbert
    • Detective Crean
    Liz Windsor
    • Medical Examiner
    Paul Rees
    • Assistant Medical Examiner
    Audine Leith
    Audine Leith
    • Jules in the Gym
    Michael Hill
    • Jacko
    Max Cullen
    Max Cullen
    • Stan
    Barry Otto
    Barry Otto
    • Adler Jones
    • Director
      • Bill Bennett
    • Writer
      • Bill Bennett
    • All cast & crew
    • Production, box office & more at IMDbPro

    User reviews28

    6.31.5K
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    Featured reviews

    ShebaLing

    Great road movie

    This is probably one of my favorite movies.I first saw Kiss or Kill when it first came out in 1997.It is not your run of the mill road movie it is more complex.There is a sense of paranoia between the lead characters throughout which adds to the mystery of the whole movie.I highly recommend this movie and I hope it comes out on DVD soon.9 out of 10****
    8DukeEman

    Another road movie but this time with a difference.

    Day, Barry Langrishe, Chris Haywood, Andrew S. Gilbert, Max Cullen, Barry Otto. First impression is another road movie with two young lovers doing the Badlands. Director Bill Bennett is not that stupid. He has managed to add a twist in the genre, adding that extra spice. Yes, the fugitives are young and beautiful, with personality to keep one interested. But do they really know each other. Wherever they spend the night, a throat is sliced. Who could it be? Do they know each other that well? The entire movie is based on our perception of others. Do we really know much about our close ones. Even the detectives, (on the young lovers trail), have a moment over breakfast when one reveals a past the other never knew about. And for the general public, there is the character Zipper, an ex-footballer admired by everyone. But a video tape in the possession of our heroes reveals his inner evil. Matt and Frances do a fine job in a movie without a script, (they worked on a plot outline and the rest just happened). The great moments occur with the detectives played by Haywood and Gilbert, two skilled actors who bounce off each other so well that you sometimes feel as if you are watching a documentary. The technics used with the jump-cuts is an old one but works here. Just glad they didn't give us a picturesque of the Australian outback.
    Jaime N. Christley

    A fresh lovers-on-the-lam movie? Is it possible?

    Surprisingly, the genre hasn't been worn down to the nub, despite dozens upon dozens of examples pointing to the contrary.

    Annoying, overused, Scorsesean jump cuts aside, "Kiss or Kill" has enough good things going for it to make it the best Aussie import I've come across in a great long while.

    The director is Bill Bennett, whose other noteworthy effort was a Sandra Bullock picture that wasn't really worth bragging about (has anyone made a Sandra Bullock picture worth bragging about?) He's not too keen as a director, really, cross-cutting scenes that haven't got anything to do with each other, overdoing the jump cuts to force a free-and-easy atmosphere onto the proceedings, but as a scenarist he's excellent. The plot begins like any other ordinary "Bonnie and Clyde" xerox, but it flows free from there, as if Bennett just let the characters take over, rather than the plot conventions.

    The acting, uniformly, is pretty close to fantastic. There's Frances O'Conner as the fast-moving but slow-thinking Nikki, who as a child (opening sequence) sees something so horrible at her home that it's no wonder she chose a life of crime. Matt Day is equally skilled as her lover/partner, though we aren't given as much insight into his character as we are Nikki's. Chris Haywood and Andrew S. Albert are complete naturals as the cops on their trail. For those two detectives, they get a brilliant variation on the "Pulp Fiction" bacon discussion that is the film's highlight.

    If Bill Bennett fails directing the film into Tarantino-esque jazz rhythms, he succeeds ultimately by giving us an Australian outback that's so barren and unmistakably evil that one might think the "Mad Max" road barbarians were already bopping around, not patient enough to wait for the apocalypse. Characters talk of "unfathomable tunnels under the desert" or live in an abandoned nuclear testing facility, and all through the film there's subtle hints that the outback is one spooky, spooky place. Also, Bennett's decision to use no music (and I mean NO music) is a masterstroke, and he employs a champion cinematographer named Malcolm McCulloch to give the film an eerie, chilly atmosphere. Balance that atmosphere with the occasional joke and cheery scene, and "Kiss or Kill" keeps an audience on its toes.

    Films like this usually disappoint as they drift into convention at the climax and towards the summary. Creativity in the third act of most movies these days seems quite lacking, in fact, which made the last third of "Kiss or Kill" such a pleasure to watch. I'll just say that thankfully, the surprises and expected twists were, like the rest of the movie, driven by character and personality, instead of the requirements of the genre.
    7howie73

    Edgy noir/road movie reworking

    Any film that is prefaced with an extract from a Dylan Thomas poem deserves some praise and this film doesn't disappoint in most departments. This is essentially a film for students of film because it plays with so many cinematic conventions and mixes seemingly irreconcilable genres. Kiss or Kill is both film noir and a road movie, playing both genres against each other with the aid of Godardian jump-cuts to heighten the uneasiness and underlying menace the film evokes so well. In this sense, the film is visually audacious and technically brilliant and that's thanks to the direction which is on-target most of the time. My only gripe was the inclusion of some dubious story lines that detracted from the film's overall uneasy effect. Thankfully the acting of both leads compensates such flaws. Worth watching with a Film Theory book in one hand and popcorn in the other.
    6masked film critic

    Inconsistent, but watchable

    The attention-grabbing beginning of this movie finds two scam artists, having accidentally killed a victim, stumbling on the possibility of blackmailing a football star, and setting in motion a quirky road movie with hints of black humour.

    I have to say, this sketchy synopsis recalls the type of plotline the Coen brothers might use. This is slightly misleading - the film is darker, less gimmicky and ultimately less fun than standard Coen brothers fare - but nonetheless the film does share several of the brothers' failings - noticeably an inability to create a consistent tone or convincing psychologies for the lead characters. We know the most important character suffered severe trauma as a child, yet we learn little about her other than that, and her boyfriend seems an even bigger mystery.

    Also, to illustrate the problems the film has with tone, the film has noirish themes, but has incongruously bright sunny photography. It also contains one brilliantly funny sequence, in which a cop finds he knows his partner less well than he thought, but frankly this scene looks like it comes from another movie.

    However, the film is always watchable. It does look attractive, even if its main stylistic tic - continual jump cuts, presumably in homage to Godard - does jar after a while. Moreover, a brash, confident central performance from Frances O'Connor definitely holds the attention, and I did feel that I cared for her basically hard-to-like character.

    Although the film is only a partial success, it still looks like the type of film that could develop a cult following.

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    Related interests

    James Gandolfini, Edie Falco, Sharon Angela, Max Casella, Dan Grimaldi, Joe Perrino, Donna Pescow, Jamie-Lynn Sigler, Tony Sirico, and Michael Drayer in Les Soprano (1999)
    Crime
    Mahershala Ali and Alex R. Hibbert in Moonlight (2016)
    Drama
    Cho Yeo-jeong in Parasite (2019)
    Thriller

    Storyline

    Edit

    Did you know

    Edit
    • Trivia
      No music has been used on the soundtrack.
    • Goofs
      All entries contain spoilers
    • Quotes

      Detective Hummer: It's not the end of the world, but you can see it from here.

    • Connections
      Featured in The Movie Show: Episode dated 25 May 1997 (1997)

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    FAQ18

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    Details

    Edit
    • Release date
      • August 5, 1998 (France)
    • Country of origin
      • Australia
    • Official site
      • Beyond Films (Australia)
    • Language
      • English
    • Also known as
      • Öp ya da öldür
    • Filming locations
      • Far West Coast, South Australia, Australia
    • Production companies
      • Australian Film Finance Corporation (AFFC)
      • Bill Bennett Productions
    • See more company credits at IMDbPro

    Box office

    Edit
    • Budget
      • $2,000,000 (estimated)
    • Gross US & Canada
      • $796,681
    • Gross worldwide
      • $801,728
    See detailed box office info on IMDbPro

    Tech specs

    Edit
    • Runtime
      • 1h 36m(96 min)
    • Color
      • Color
    • Sound mix
      • Dolby
    • Aspect ratio
      • 1.85 : 1

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