Going in Circles
Russian director Kirill Sokolov unleashes his gory brand of nihilism in English.
They Will Kill You
Director: Kirill Sokolov • Writers: Kirill Sokolov, Alex Litvak
Starring: Zazie Beetz, Tom Felton, Myha’La, Paterson Joseph, Heather Graham, Patricia Arquette
USA • 1hr 35mins
Opens Hong Kong March 26 • III
Grade: B-
It pains me to say this but, the only thing that truly separates They Will Kill You from Ready or Not 2: Here I Come – also opening today – is that this one features two Black sisters fighting their way out of a building locked down by a cult, and that one features two white sisters fighting their way out of a building locked down by a cult. Whatever traction you personally get from either depends on how much you like the lead sister, here being Jokers and Deadpool 2 Zazie Beetz, proving her untapped value as an action star.
Best known for the mostly hilarious and bloody Tarantino riff Why Don’t You Just Die! from 2018, Russian director Kirill Sokolov’s bog standard vengeance thriller – and English-language debut – pulls from a lot of sources: Sam Raimi (almost everything), Drew Goddard (Bad Times at the El Royale), Park Chan-wook, The Raid, comic books and a touch of Blaxploitation among a laundry list of other genre signposts. At its core it’s an Eat the Rich satire, one that fumbles its premise by its construction. It’s a weird conundrum too, because by not getting overly pleased with itself and hiding its gimmick for too long (good) it defangs that very gimmick and forces Kill You into a numbing and, more egregiously, boring pattern with zero stakes (bad). When we know there are no villains to truly vanquish, Kirill’s giddy beheadings, maimings, dismemberments and torchings wear out their welcome and neuter any comment he and co-writer Alex Litvak intended to make.
Which doesn’t preclude the film from any stand-out set pieces or action sequences, chiefly the first fight that breaks out the night Asia Reaves (Beetz) arrives at the super-upscale hotel-ish condominium (maybe?) tower in Manhattan, The Virgil, as a new addition to the housekeeping staff. She’s met by Lily (Patricia Arquette), the occasionally Irish superintendent of The Virgil and her husband Ray (Paterson Joseph, one of the elitist chocolatiers in Wonka), who is, shall we say, unwelcoming. But Asia’s just out of prison after shooting her abusive father and abandoning her younger sister Maria (Myha’la, Dumb Money), who just so happens to be working at The Virgil. After she goes to bed, residents Sharon (Heather Graham), Kevin (Harry Potter’s Tom Felton) and a few other dudes break into her room to grab her – and it does not go their way. But hoh hoh. They don’t stay dead. It turns out that The Virgil is a gateway to Hell and the guests are part of a Satanic cult that grants them immortality. Go!
Sokolov and Litvak allegedly based the apartment tower on Dante’s Inferno and its Nine Cirlces of Hell – and in case you didn’t get the Virgil reference there are devil carvings on the façade and individual floors dedicated to Earthly sins. But none of that really helps us get a handle on who Sharon, Lily, Kevin, Ray and the rest are or why they’ve checked in other than a flip “rich people” when someone asks Asia what happened (also in case you didn’t get the blunt AF title). That and some mumblings about gentrification and no-good bums, make up the bulk of the film’s exploration of class themes; the related race issues are hinted at by the non-white housekeeping crew. Any real ideas are buried beneath the considerable viscera Kirill is fixated on.
On the upside Beetz proves she’s good at this shit and deserves to be more than second fiddle. She’s fabulously physical (and to his credit Kirill puts her in pants, in stark contrast to what many of his peers would do) and can pull a slow burn double take with the best, which thankfully supports what limpid comedy there is here. There’s good stunt work (duh), some great prosthetics and practical effects (one of Sharon’s eyes amusingly plays a short but critical role), and the film is nice and mean; Asia punches a brat 10-year-old in the face and it’s entirely satisfying on a vicarious level. But more could have gone into Asia and Maria’s awkward reunion after their estrangement, and despite the hotel’s stylish deco to mid-century modern design there’s a weak (at best) sense of space that makes it hard to get an idea of where Asia is within the building, and why or why not she’s in trouble. And threre’s just one too many stormy nights and tunnels/shafts. Kirill moves at breakneck speed and stumbles onl when it hits a brick wall of flashbacks, which under normal circumstances would be welcome in a slab of genre mayhem. But as it stands, They Will Kill You has got to be the most exhausting 90 minutes of the year so far, notwithstanding anything out of Washington.