L'amour ou la mort

Kantz and Ramsey also put together "The Big Hit", which I disliked so much, I demanded my money back from the video store. But I admit that there is something appealing about this one.

The film is an attempt to do comic noir, and is definitely of a flavor similar to that of Tarantino's films and of the British neo-noir.

The problem such films have is one of bad taste - it's difficult to know when killing and hurting people can be made amusing, and when it just hurts and laughing at it is stepping close to something profoundly unhealthy.

However, "Love and a Bullet" only crosses that line a couple of times; and I think much of the appeal of the film comes out of the performance of Treach, who is right on the money throughout. Some of the dialog is over much, and more could have been done with less - although I admit that for a film put together for half-a-million in 2002, this really looks well-made. But I really mean less in the story and in the dialog, which goes over the top once too often to suit me.

But on the whole, an entertaining Post-Modern crime comedy of the 'outre' variety.

When I first saw the trailer to this movie on some other action DVD, I thought, "You must be kidding me. This has got to be the worst straight-to-video HK-action rip-off ever made." But after watching the first few minutes of it on cable, I knew the trailer was all wrong. They'd focused on all the wrong elements. I found "Love and a Bullet" to be something of a black "Snatch"-type movie (no jokes, now), very tongue-in-cheek and enjoyably self-referential. The final battle, as silly as it was, was easier to swallow after the movie's setup. After all, it's not a straight gangsta-action movie; it's more of a black comedy. In both senses of the word. Definitely worth the 90-minute investment.

Picture this if you will, just before the dawning of the new year, here's me and a bottle of the finest Jack Daniels, no Ice! Just straight up, and there i sit, popped in the dvd release of "Love And A Bullet".

I Had no idea who Treach was, or to be honest still is, aside from hearing that he'd turned up in "Jason's Lyric" and the cover reminded me somewhat of the Keenan Ivory Wayans Flick, "A Low Down Dirty Shame", But these rather shallow points aside, there i sat, a glass of jack in one hand and the dvd remote control in the other.

As the movie gathered a pace, i'll be honest, the whole thing resembled a mish mash of everything, no bad thing, to anyone who ever saw the Bokeem Woodbine movie, "BlackMale" Released over here in Brittain as "BlackMail" a movie like the one in question, that is just so overloaded with everything, you just have to see it to believe it.

Treach's character, Malik Bishop has risen through the ranks of hoodlum hitman to professional Hitman, who suffers a crises of conscience, which is something that we are let in on, as we fade in at the beginning, then we flash back to where it all began.

Where do we go from there? I think at that point the Jack Daniels was really kicking in, because what unfolded, was so wild and wacky, it all kinda made sense. This was a movie consisting of comedic moments, Kung Fu, some serious gun play and a very strange take on Martin Luther King's "I Have A Dream speech, as spoken by Malik's white Boss.

A really good soundtrack throughout, and a very, very good first time out performance by Sam Scarber as the Zen/Svengali Hitman, Buddy entrusted with the task of showing Bishop the finer points to being a hitman, more importantly, how to make a really good capuccino!

In the morning, after the jack had slightly worn off, i watched the DVD again, however with the director's commentary, and you know what, the movie was even better. What can i say, yes the alcohol made things easier, but even with or without, this was a very easy movie to watch, even more so second time around.

Love and a Bullet is a film that I watched and really don't know how to express my feelings towards it. By the cover you would think the film would be full of action it's not. But the film does have some decent acting and a likeable lead performance in Treach. If you just wanna waste about 90 min then check this out.

This movie was much better than I expected!

I thought the story was very smart and original. Some good twists and turns.

The action scenes were exciting, original and very, very cool. A bit more gory than I expected.

The acting was pretty good. Especially since Treach is a rapper and sometimes there not very good.

It was a nice blend of comedy and action. The jokes were very good. It's no wonder it was written and directed by Ben Ramsey, who did The Big Hit.

Does anyone else think Treach sounds like Ice T, especially when narrating.

Overall I thought it was a funny, exciting, original and very, very cool movie.