Road Kill

Writer director Leutwyler has a unique idea here but he doesn't know if wanted to do a comedy or a drama. Alex, Palladino, is a film student getting tuition money from a local loan shark, Mr. Z. It seems his films all bear a striking resemblance to bad imitations of Jackie Chan's martial art works and his professor is threatening to end his college career unless he can come up with something original and Mr. Z is threatening him with more unless he can make his payments.

Well, his new neighbor, Blue, Jennifer Rubin, turns out to be a hired killer who wants to get out of the business after one last job. Bingo, he gets the idea of making a documentary film about her career and last job. Naturally she goes along with the idea and Alex's roommate, Lars, goes along as his sound assistant. Sort of a combo "The Whole Nine Yards" and "Three for the Road"?

But what we now have is a poorly shot and boring Los Angeles to Miami road trip with Blue bearing her soul and Lars killing any humor with poor sight jokes about his lactose intolerance.

If that isn't bad enough we have a stop over on the way home so that Blue can get revenge on her pedohilic step father and Alex can fight over the moral dilemma of having filmed a paid killer in action.

Rubin, a genuinely attractive woman and underrated actress is wasted in this mess and Palladino, who shows some comedic ability, is as confused as the writer/director is. Anthony Denison has a few funny scenes as the polite, art loving loan shark but this is the kind of movie that should have been given a D by any honest Professor of Film.

Checked this one out at the Santa Barbara film festival. It's a shame the release wasn't wider, there are definite cult possibilities. Impressive performance from "Silver Spoons" alum Billy Jayne. Perhaps a little too "pretentious student film" but had a lot of laughs and an unexpected touch to the end of the film.

I like the movie although I had wish there was more angst for Alex(Erik). I also thought they would involve the loan sharks more. Over all I really enjoyed the movie I think because of Erik Palladino and am looking for him in more movies. He's an excellent actor and Road Kill was no exception. Nice job Erik!!!!Keep up the good work.

Jennifer Rubin is one of the actresses everyone has seen. In this she shows she can really act. The plot is realatively simple: a failing film student must make one good film to graduate. He meets his next door neighbor who turns out to be a hit woman. (Rubin) Hey, here's an idea: let's make a documentary of your next hit.

And that's what they set out to do. Film her next "road" "kill".

This is not a trashy film. It's well done. Entertaining. Often funny. A coming of age in extreme circumstances film.

Consider that this independent film, with a too cute title, ends up with a rating above 7.0 on IMDb. If you can find the DVD it's well worth your invested time.

And Jennifer can act!

I agree with flimbuff's review. I never heard of this movie till I saw it on another board . . sounded interesting, so I watched it. What a good idea gone bad. Erik Palladino and Jennifer Rubin are both really good actors respectively, but even they can't save this movie. Comedy? Drama? Horror? (the various chopped off digits) . I think it should have gone the comedy route. Tony Denison is funny in this (is that a carbon monoxide detector?), as is Jon Polito, but they both are only in the movie for about 4 or 5 minutes each. The road trip was tediously boring (as were all of the lactose intolerant jokes and the camera equipment/film school dialog only a film student or a film geek would get). Oh, then it ends with "I Could Be Happy" by Altered Images played over the end credits. Huh???? An A for the actors, D- for all of the weird music choices (Hobo Thumpin' Slow Mo Babe?), an F for the lousy ADR, and finally, a D for the overall movie. Would like to see all of these great actors together again, in a good movie.