Killing Machine

This is a thought provoking movie shot in a very interesting manner. The content is a bit eery, but the quality is superior for a "B" action flick. Jeff Wincott is great in his performance. The storyline is very good but with a dark ending... but it keeps your attention.

Jeff Wincott stars as Harlan Quinn a hit-man who wakes up to find that he's been declared dead and that he's been recruited to work for the CIA in killing anybody who's a threat to the government, this has all been set up by the mysterious Mr.Green (Michael Ironside) and his first targets include a homosexual advocate, a muckraking journalist and a female professor with information that the AIDs virus was manufactured. Dr.Ann Kendall (Terri Hawkes) is the last one of Wincott's list but he finds himself falling for his prey and when the time comes for the kill, Quinn ends up protecting Kendall from the assassins now gunning for them both in this intense thriller. Jeff Wincott gives an impressive performance and Ironside makes for a great villain which elevates this far above the usual output of this worn out hit-man genre.

4/5 Matt Bronson

While the plot is nothing new (government contract killer falls for one of his assignments), this Canadian-lensed action drama is a cut above the rest. The amazing, intense Jeff Wincott plays the contract killer, and the fetching, vulnerable Terri Hawkes is the assignment he falls for. The always dependable Michael Ironside is Wincott's shadowy boss, a government official of sorts who is told who to kill, if not always why. This low-budget actioner was filmed and produced with the care and attention to detail of many A-level productions. And Wincott is thoroughly believable as a killing machine who develops a conscience. The fight scenes are extremely well staged, and they are frequent. Some decent nudity and a couple of detailed sex scenes keep the attention from flagging between fights and shootouts. Kudos to the director/writer, who clearly knew how to get the most for his money.

In stark comparison to another Canadian B-movie action movie which I have reviewed (Hawk's Vengeance), _The Killing Machine_ (1994) is an all-around excellent movie of it's B-class genre. I would go so far as to call it more of an A-minus movie than a B-plus, in that it has superior writing, directing, acting, editing and production values than I have come to expect from budget action films.

The story is relatively simple: Harlin Garrett (Jeff Wincott) is a former mob hitman who is 'rescued' from near-death at the hands of his double-crossing former employers, by an unspecified top secret government agency. The head of the agency, the mysterious Mr. Green (Michael Ironside) offers Garrett a choice: eliminate some 'enemies of the state' and serve his country, earning himself a new lease on life, or be summarily terminated. Garrett, after considering his options, opts to aid his new employers in carrying out some assassinations. However, things begin to go awry when Garrett falls in love with Dr. Ann Kendall, a medical professor he has been ordered to kill. Now he must choose between his new career and his new love, as he fights to uncover the truth behind the assassination orders he has been given.

I won't spoil the ending for you or get into specifics, even if the story is perhaps slightly derivative and predictable in its plot. However, I will happily indulge in heaping kudos on writer-director David Mitchell, who takes what would otherwise have been a horribly hackneyed B-movie thriller and turned it into something which almost transcends the ignominy of its genre.

The dialogue is not weak or stilted, and while there are not really any quotable soliloquys or witty, pithy one-liners from the protagonist, neither is it embarassingly amateurish. The plot is not particularly complex, but neither is it totally hackneyed, and the story requires very little suspension of disbelief to be believable. It is also not egregiously complicated (a problem found in many B-movies), which can be credited as much to the strong continuity, excellent editing and filming as to the writing. There are even some scenes with wonderfully sublime and subtle shots (eg. a scene where Garrett gets up in the middle of the night beside the sleeping Ann Kendall, and silently dresses before attempting to rummage through her valise - the scene is wonderfully shot, with everything from the care with which Garrett takes so as not to awaken Ann, to the dressing in the dark (captured in silhouette on the wall rather than obviously and directly filmed)). The fight scenes are wonderfully choreographed and filmed to ensure that most, if not all of the kicks and punches appear to land on their opponents, and a final showdown with the henchman of the main antagonist is filmed partially in slow-motion, and both actors give laudable performances in attempting to realistically portray and convey the terrible bone-breaking blows and excruciating pain of the fight. The gunplay is excellent as well, if not exactly Matrix-level or John Woo-style, the gunshots are foleyed well, accurately set up, and even the bloodsplatters and drips on the floor look realistic. I give high marks for the excellent production values of the movie, a credit to the producers. Even the incidental music and score is of remarkable quality without sounding cheap or being overly intrusive.

As for the acting, Jeff Wincott does an admirable job portraying the main character as a brooding loner with dubious morals and ambiguous allegiances, yet nevertheless a sympathetic anti-hero you end up rooting for. Michael Ironside brings his usual sinister scowl and Jack Nicholson impression to the role of Mr. Green (he must be the hardest working man in Hollywood this side of Kevin Bacon!), and Terri Hawkes is excellent in bringing the 'hot librarian' look to the Dr. Kendall character, playing the competent professional, the frightened leading lady, the angry girlfriend and the succubus-in-the-sack scenes with equal skill. There is also a cameo scene with Calista Carradine (daughter of David Carradine) that is so brief that if you blink you might miss it, as well as some requisite B-movie staples of gratuitous nudity and love scenes, courtesy of eye candies Stephanie McKeown and Rhonda Towells. It is interesting to note that Terri Hawkes also has a love scene in this movie, as she is perhaps better known as the voice for 'Serena', a.k.a. Sailor Moon and 'Franny' from the politically incorrect cartoon 'Quads!'. Jeff Wincott is the older brother of actor Michael Wincott, who played the character Philo Gant in the James Cameron-written/Kathryn Bigelow-directed science fiction thriller _Strange Days_ (1995) among other roles as supporting characters.

As someone who grew up in Toronto and now once-again a current resident of the GTA, I am proud to note that all three of the lead actors in this movie (and perhaps, some, most or all of the other actors as well) are from the T-Dot, and I believe the movie was filmed here as well (I believe I glimpsed an obvious Torontonian moment when Terri Hawkes gets into a Diamond Taxi Cab on her way home from work). There are many Canadian films filmed in Canada, but few get the respect of most critics or movie-goers (with the exception of Cronenberg/Egoyan films, perhaps), with reason: most Canadian films cannot match the production values of Hollywood-produced films, especially in the dreaded B-movie genre. However, _The Killing Machine_ is an example of how smaller Canadian-made films can be excellent (like _Cube_ (1997), and _Treed Murray_ (2001)), and I hope Canadian filmmaking will continue to pursue these higher standards of excellence to silence the naysayers who deride Canadian films.

Director David Mitchell has created a gem in The Killing Machine.

Starring Jeff Wincott who has also been in other classic flicks, Last Man Standing 1996, Martial Outlaw 1993, Mission of Justice 1992 and Martial Law II: Undercover 1992.

Also starring Michael Ironside who has also been in other classic flicks, The Butcher 2009, Terminator Salvation 2009, Surveillance 2008, Starship Troopers 1997, Total Recall 1990, Nowhere to Hide 1987, Hello Mary Lou: Prom Night II 1987, Forced to Kill 1994 and Scanners 1981.

Also starring Terri Hawkes who has also been in other classic flicks, Sabotage 1996 and Hello Mary Lou: Prom Night II with Michael Ironside.

I enjoyed the fight scenes and the shootouts.

If you enjoyed this as much as I did then check out other classic hit-man flicks, The Fifth Commandment 2008, Icarus 2010, Leon: The Professional 1994, The Marker 2008, The Replacement Killers 1998, Crank 2006, The Long Kiss Goodnight 1996, Smokin' Aces 2006, Kill Bill: Vol.1 2003, Kill Bill: Vol 2 2004, Road to Perdition 2002, Pulp Fiction 1994, The Bourne Ultimatum 2007, Nikita 1990, The Boondock Saints 1999, Hit-man 2007, Killing Them Softly 2012, One in the Chamber 2012, Bullet to the Head 2012, Interview with a Hit-man 2012, American Ultra 2015, Hit-man: Agent 47 2015, Sicarivs: the Night and the Silence 2015, Accident Man 2018, A Hit-man in London 2015, Polar 2019 and Wanted 2008.