Retro Film Review: Kill Me Again (1989)

(source: tmdb.org)

Film noir is rather popular genre choice for young, independent filmmakers making their directing debuts. This is hardly surprising, since the genre originated in B-studios of 1940s Hollywood, where cheap sets and low budgets mandated stories and characters with dark nitty-gritty realism being the anti-thesis of A-production's glamour. Since such films usually have contemporary settings and rather ordinary, every-day set of characters and situations, even today they tend to be cheap and rather simple. But there are directors who tend to stick to that particular genre even after reaching fame and having a ticket to mainstream Hollywood. One of them is John Dahl, author of Red Rock West and The Last Seduction, two film noirs that are often considered to be among the best pieces of American cinema in 1990s. But even his directing debut – Kill Me Again, made in 1989 - shows truly great talent at work.

The plot of Kill Me Again, based on the script co-authored by Dahl and David A. Warfield, begins with two lovers and small-time criminals - Fay Forrester (played by Joanne Whalley) and Vince Miller (played by Michael Madsen) - successfully stealing 825,000 US$ from Nevada mobsters. Fay, however, can't resist the temptation to spend all the moneyby herself, especially since Vince happens to be rather violent and possessive sort of man. So she uses opportunity to escape with the loot and takes refuge in Reno. There she devises a plan to get rid of Vince permanently by faking her own death. Private investigator Jack Andrews (played by Val Kilmer) agrees to help her due to his own financial problems. He stages the fake murder but soon afterwards Fay disappears and Jack becomes murder suspect. He manages to get out of custody and starts looking for Fay, but he is not the only one who does so since Vince and mobsters are also trying to get their hands on the loot.

Kill Me Again could be best described as film noir stripped to its essential elements. Here we have them all - seductive, manipulative and utterly immoral femme fatale, who also happens to be brunette (same as in Dahl's next two film noirs); weak male protagonist who is manipulated by that character although he should have known better; stash of money as "Mac Guffin" and series of plot twists. Dahl keeps everything simple in this film - his characters, with the sole exception of Jack, seem to lack their own past and all their actions are motivated by their present-time needs and situations. Because of that the film is relatively short, and the desert scenery of American Southwest seem to underline said simplicity of the characters and story. The simplicity is somewhat compromised with William Olvis' musical score which happens to get irritating after a while.

The acting in the film is generally very good, although Val Kilmer minimalist performance doesn't quite explain some elements of his character. However, he has a good chemistry with Joanne Whalley, who used to be Mrs. Kilmer during the production of the film, although two of them couldn't be described as one of the great film noir couples. Joanne Whalley is, nevertheless, very good in the role of femme fatale. But the best performance comes from Michael Madsen, who shows superb talent in his portrayal of possessive, violent and psychopathic criminal, in many ways similar to his best known role of Mr. Blonde in Reservoir Dogs. He too has a good chemistry with Joanne Whalley, thus providing Kill Me Again with one of the more interesting love triangles in modern cinema.

All in all, Kill Me Again, although somewhat obscured by John Dahl's latter works, is a very good example of modern film noir and as such it should be recommended to every viewer who likes this particular genre.
RATING: 8/10 (+++)

(Note: The text in its original form was posted in Usenet newsgroup rec.arts.movies.reviews on March 5th 2001)