Killing Time

THE STORY: This movie has to be taken with a grain of salt. Its not what you might expect from the cover. Yeah, there's lots of killing, but its not wall to wall shooting. Whether that's good or bad depends on how much action you really want in a movie.

Reilly, a sort of Prof. Moriarty type criminal, kicks off the events in this movie by killing a British police detective and leaving his body nailed to the door of Detective Bryant, his partner. Naturally, this pisses Bryant off to no end. Now, if this was an American movie, Bryant would have argued with his captain and then gone out and killed every criminal within sight until he got to Reilly. But as it isn't an American movie, Bryant hires an Italian hitwoman to kill Reilly.  There's a catch though...Bryant can't really afford to pay the assassin's fee so he hires Charlie, a cheap thug, to kill the assassin after she kills Reilly. The assassin doesn't speak English, but tries to learn it by listening to English language tapes.

But as the best laid plans of mice and men go, it doesn't work out the way it was planned. Charlie and his goons follow the assassin to the hit, and she slaughters Reilly's men. Only Reilly is out of town. He won't be back until later that afternoon. The assassin learns when Reilly will be back and plans to kill him then. Only Charlie doesn't know that Reilly wasn't in his hideout and tries to kill the assassin. One by one his goons go to the assassin's hotel room to kill her and she dispatches all of them. It doesn't take too long before the assassin finds that Bryant has hired the thugs to kill her. She doesn't know that Bryant is a cop or what he looks like but forces enough information out of Charlie (before he dies) to figure out she's been double crossed.

Bryant on the other hand realizes that the assassin knows he planned to have her killed. He confides his plans to another police officer. Together they figure out that they should probably tell Reilly before they all end up dead. Bryant and his pal meet Reilly in the train station when he returns from his trip. The problem is the assassin arrives there too, in order to finish her job. Bullets begin flying and within moments the only people left standing are the assassin, Reilly and Bryant. Bryant's friend is wounded, but alive....barely. When the assassin realizes who Bryant is she's quite willing to shoot both him and Reilly. Reilly, however speaks Italian and translates Bryan's words to her....like a dummy. The assassin merely wants her money....and Reilly, returning from a hard afternoon of criminal activity happens to be carrying a case full of money. When Reilly translates Bryant's words that "The money is in the case" the assassin shoots Reilly and takes the money as her payment. Then she leaves Bryant alive and disappears.

A friend of mine saw this movie and told me he thought it was boring. Most likely because he expected it to a bang-bang shoot 'em up, with lots of explosions and the assassin having Rambo-like killing abilities. While the assassin did have the miraculous ability to not get hit even though a half dozen men are firing at her, she wasn't superhuman. One of the goons nearly kills her with his bare hands. Still, I enjoyed it. Its just different enough to be interesting. I'm not too keen on who is a famous actor in the UK and who isn't, but I have seen one of the actors in this movie. Bryant was actor Craig Fairbrass. He plays the conniving Dan Sullivan on the BBC soap opera Eastenders.*

Best Lines: "I want to [unwrite]ing [unwrite] her!"-One of the goons sent to kill the assassins is smitten by her beauty.

"For [unwrite]'s sake I've got Dick Hard-On here, Captain Cock here, and Willy Wonker!"-Charlie's mad that his goon's all want to screw the assassin and not just kill her. These guys are so stupid they're almost comic relief.

1.) The assassin is supposed to be the best...but I don't see how that can be true. She's not as good as she is incredibly lucky! When she tries to kill Reilly (both times) she stands in the open and fires. Not one of the five or six people shooting back hits her! That's not skill! That's luck! Luck that her opponents have the aim of Ray Charles! For that matter, the assassin doesn't exactly have great aim! Except for the people she shoots at close range she misses a lot. That's not what I would call a very skilled assassin.

2.) America and England have a lot in common. In most American movies gunfire and explosions don't seem to attract the police....well British police don't respond to it either! The assassin's first attack can almost be excused. Maybe no one is around to report the gunshots in the warehouse. The shots fired in the hotel room I'll let slide just to be nice...but when the assassin catches up with Reilly in the train station? Its a train station for Pete's Sake! Its late afternoon! The station is strangely empty, which I don't particularly understand, but someone...at least one person has to work there!! No one heard the multiple gunshots in there and called the police? Gunshots are pretty loud. Its inconceivable that no one heard any of them and called the cops.

3.) Charlie tries to kill the assassin while she's in the tub. But she manages to get out of the bathroom, crawl through some vents in the ceiling and come out behind him. I just want to know how she got dressed so quickly. When she realizes Charlie is in her hotel room she's taking a bath...naked....but she's fully clothed when she kills him. How the hell did she get out of the tub, drain the water in the tub, get dressed, climb into the air vent and miraculously be dry within the space of a minute? If I could get dressed that quick I'd never be late for work! 

4.) You gotta feel a little sorry for Frank, the bellboy. His only crime was walking in on the assassin as she's beating the crap out of one of Charlie's goons. For that he gets a bullet. What a way to go.

NUDITY AND SEX: None

HUH?: The assassin spends most of her non-killing-guys time studying English language tapes. Isn't it kind of late for that? She's already in England! Unless she's a real fast learner or has the memory of Seven of Nine, I don't see how she can hope to learn English in a few hours. (of course she learns enough of it to make the plot work) What's the point though....by the time she realistically could have learned even a little bit of English, Reilly should be dead and her mission completed.

Bryant should have known better than to hire Charlie to kill the assassin. He's a petty thug and she's a professional killer. In turn Charlie gets some of his not-very-smart friends to help. One guy makes himself at home in the assassin's hotel room, hoping to kill her when she returns. Now, I'm not a criminal and I'm not the most clever guy to ever live, but I think that if I had to kill a professional assassin when they return to their hotel room I wouldn't touch a damn thing. I'd just wait quietly for a few hours until she came in and catch her unaware. But not this dullard. If he used a little stealth (and brains) the assassin would have been caught off guard. As it is, he made enough noise (had music playing, slept on the bed, etc.) that she knew he was there and of course, blew a hole in him.

Didn't anyone at the hotel wonder what happened to Frank, the bellboy? The assassin killed him, but the manager doesn't seem too concerned that he's missing.

THE TALLY: Entertaining movie. The fact that the assassin speaks only Italian was a nice touch in my opinion. There are some unrealistic bits, but not as unrealistic as watching Arnold or Van Damme beat up fifty guys with their bare hands.

*Okay....I don't like American soap operas....they're more unrealistic than any sci-fi movie! But I do watch Eastenders. (A fact that made many a soldier in barracks laugh. "Hey guys, guess what Sarge is watchin'!")