This is a sort of modern day film noir directed by Bill Bennett and stars Matt Day and Frances O'Connor. Day and O'Connor play a young couple in Austrila who are a couple of con artists and they mostly scam married men who pick up O'Connor in a bar. Things are going good until someone actually dies and they wind up with a videotape, on that videotape is a celebrity named Zipper Doyle, who is a football star, and he's having sex with a young boy. Day and O'Connor go on the run with both the police looking for them and Doyle trying to kill them. There are several more deaths but you don't see who murders who and Day and O'Connor get to the point where they can't trust each other. It's a pretty good movie that was a huge hit in Austrilia.
Add a Review
-
KyleFurr29 December 2005
-
masked film critic7 July 2000The attention-grabbing beginning of this movie finds two scam artists, having accidentally killed a victim, stumbling on the possibility of blackmailing a football star, and setting in motion a quirky road movie with hints of black humour.
I have to say, this sketchy synopsis recalls the type of plotline the Coen brothers might use. This is slightly misleading - the film is darker, less gimmicky and ultimately less fun than standard Coen brothers fare - but nonetheless the film does share several of the brothers' failings - noticeably an inability to create a consistent tone or convincing psychologies for the lead characters. We know the most important character suffered severe trauma as a child, yet we learn little about her other than that, and her boyfriend seems an even bigger mystery.
Also, to illustrate the problems the film has with tone, the film has noirish themes, but has incongruously bright sunny photography. It also contains one brilliantly funny sequence, in which a cop finds he knows his partner less well than he thought, but frankly this scene looks like it comes from another movie.
However, the film is always watchable. It does look attractive, even if its main stylistic tic - continual jump cuts, presumably in homage to Godard - does jar after a while. Moreover, a brash, confident central performance from Frances O'Connor definitely holds the attention, and I did feel that I cared for her basically hard-to-like character.
Although the film is only a partial success, it still looks like the type of film that could develop a cult following. -
howie736 January 2005Any film that is prefaced with an extract from a Dylan Thomas poem deserves some praise and this film doesn't disappoint in most departments. This is essentially a film for students of film because it plays with so many cinematic conventions and mixes seemingly irreconcilable genres. Kiss or Kill is both film noir and a road movie, playing both genres against each other with the aid of Godardian jump-cuts to heighten the uneasiness and underlying menace the film evokes so well. In this sense, the film is visually audacious and technically brilliant and that's thanks to the direction which is on-target most of the time. My only gripe was the inclusion of some dubious story lines that detracted from the film's overall uneasy effect. Thankfully the acting of both leads compensates such flaws. Worth watching with a Film Theory book in one hand and popcorn in the other.
-
ShebaLing22 April 2002This is probably one of my favorite movies.I first saw Kiss or Kill when it first came out in 1997.It is not your run of the mill road movie it is more complex.There is a sense of paranoia between the lead characters throughout which adds to the mystery of the whole movie.I highly recommend this movie and I hope it comes out on DVD soon.9 out of 10****
-
The director wants to show us a car skidding to a halt. So he films a car skidding to a halt, from a single camera angle; then he shows us the whole shot but with several consecutive frames simply missing. He does this continually, throughout the entire film, so that a character can't walk across the room for the most trivial of reasons without jerking from place to place like an electron.
In an interview, Bill Bennett justified this practise by saying that we don't really need to see the missing footage in order to tell what's going on. An appalling argument. We don't need to see ANY of the footage in order to tell what's going on. We could probably reconstruct it from the dialogue track alone - even then, we'd probably have a fair idea of what's going on if every tenth word were removed. Why doesn't Bennett just mail us the script? This is yet more proof that artists shouldn't theorise about art. Bill Bennett clearly thinks he has the right to impose his failed experiments and half-baked theories on my aching eyes - and I resent it.
It's more of a pity because the basic script is fine. (What there is of it. Some dialogue has been improvised - a touch that sometimes works well, sometimes doesn't.) There's a decent suspense story here and there's a nice touch using remote regions of Australia which I'd rather leave a surprise. The story is strong enough to transcend the childish editing and push "Kiss or Kill" into the "watchable" category. How good it would have been if edited in a sane manner is hard to tell. I simply can't evaluate such abstruse hypothetical questions. Nor should I have to. -
jordondave-2808521 April 2023(1997) Kiss Or Kill CRIME THRILLER
Unconventional 'on the run' movie, co-produced, written and directed by Bill Bennett starring Frances O'Connor as Nikki, who as a child, is now scarred for life, since when she was a child she used to witness her mom burn to death as a result of some guy splashing gasoline on her before lighting her on fire. Then the actual story starts, is when Nikki allows a cheating husband to seduce her, so that she can drug him before robbing him blind, with her boyfriend, Al Fletcher(Matt Day) aiding her. What happens next is that the businessman accidentally dies, and as a result of also stealing the contents of this guys briefcase, they then come across an incriminating video tape of a well known celebrity, by the name of Zipper Doyle (Barry Langrishe) exploiting a young child. And instead of using it for blackmail, the young couple decide to go 'on the run' by driving away, and seeking to exchange other vehicles, while both the police and Zipper Doyle are going after them. At first, it appears to look like a young "Bonnie & Clyde", "Sugarland Express" and "Badlands" movie, but as the movie is progressing, not everything is what it appears to be as they're on the run. And although, it's unconventional, it'd have to take much of the first half of the entire film to the revelation to it being memorable. Perhaps if I had not seen those other 'on the run' films would've made a stronger impact than if was made later. Winner of 5 Australian Awards out of 11 nominations. -
rmax30482321 March 2006Interesting murder/love story, set in the Australian outback. Way out in the outback. A road picture in which a reckless young couple are pursued by both the police and a gangster who wants something they've taken from him.
Simple enough so far. The problem is that the couple seem to be ahead of the people tracking them, yet from time to time, as they stop at some crummy motel for the night, or stay at a friendly couple's house, a dead body or two turns up the next morning. So who's doing whom around here? The young lady (O'Connor) has a habit of sleepwalking and doing things at night that she is unable to remember. But Al (Day) is doing things too -- robbing their acquaintances, for instance -- and trying to keep these secret acts from her.
The ending, which renders the concept of implausibility corporate, winds up with both the young folks innocent of any serious crime, and they live happily ever after.
Despite the fact that people get burned to death, raped, and have their throats cut, it's overall a pretty good-natured movie with little gore or horror. Actually, there is some humor, mostly involving the pair of obscene detectives who are tracking the suspects.
At one point the cops are forced by their responsibility to watch a tape which has recorded the goings on in a motel room, searching for an image of O'Connor. In one episode on the tape a middle-aged man slips into bed with a blond young boy. ("Eh, this ******'s sick.") Farther on, a dark girl strips and begins servicing her customer. One cop says that it looks like O'Connor. The older cop stops the tape, peers at the screen, and says, no, that's not her. That's Felicity. The first cop thinks for a moment and asks, "'Ow do you know air nime is Felicity"? "Because she 'as no teeth," answers the other. They both nod and start the tape again. There are several such incidents, all the more funny because neither of them laughs. They're given the best lines, no doubt about it. "Well, this isn't the end of the world but you can see it from here." I don't know exactly why the film is edited in such a way that many cuts have a few frames missing. I guess it saves time and adds some zip to what is already a pretty fast-moving story. I didn't find it as distracting as it might sound. Never any sense of the director's hollering, "Hey, Mom, I got a CAMERA!" Australians are generally a lot of fun. I like the guys especially. They're heavily into sports, beer drinking, jokes, bonding and a lot of other masculine stuff -- without a touch of narcissism or meanness. I like them because they demonstrate that manliness doesn't necessarily take the form of John Wayne. They haven't painted themselves into a corner by adopting too narrow a definition of gender identity. Hard to believe that Greek warriors would write poetry in the evening and rush into combat mano a mano the next day. -
sol-16 May 2005A stylish Australian road movie with ideas in terms of trust and morality, the film is nevertheless rather repulsive, not only in terms of its story, but also how the film is put together. The protagonists are drawn completely unsympathetically as very cold-blooded criminals, which gives one little reason to care what happens to them. The characters who are chasing them are not much better developed either, and thrown into the weird mix there is an array of meaningless supporting characters which the protagonists run into, and some odd subplots that they become involved in but which are never fully explored. Frequent use of jump cuts makes the film looking interesting, but it also make the film feel uncomfortable, like they do not belong. Either way, it is all quite watchable, and if the content appeals one's taste, it may well be worth a shot. However, if there is no appeal to watch it, I would recommend staying away.
-
Day, Barry Langrishe, Chris Haywood, Andrew S. Gilbert, Max Cullen, Barry Otto. First impression is another road movie with two young lovers doing the Badlands. Director Bill Bennett is not that stupid. He has managed to add a twist in the genre, adding that extra spice. Yes, the fugitives are young and beautiful, with personality to keep one interested. But do they really know each other. Wherever they spend the night, a throat is sliced. Who could it be? Do they know each other that well? The entire movie is based on our perception of others. Do we really know much about our close ones. Even the detectives, (on the young lovers trail), have a moment over breakfast when one reveals a past the other never knew about. And for the general public, there is the character Zipper, an ex-footballer admired by everyone. But a video tape in the possession of our heroes reveals his inner evil. Matt and Frances do a fine job in a movie without a script, (they worked on a plot outline and the rest just happened). The great moments occur with the detectives played by Haywood and Gilbert, two skilled actors who bounce off each other so well that you sometimes feel as if you are watching a documentary. The technics used with the jump-cuts is an old one but works here. Just glad they didn't give us a picturesque of the Australian outback.
-
DennisLittrell19 February 2000The opening scene of this lovers on the lam, Aussie style, noire thriller is designed to arrest our attention. Mommie answers the door only to have gasoline tossed on her and lighted while her four-year-old daughter Nikki watches. This accounts for Nikki's life of crime and explains why one night she doses her lover boy with the same stuff. However she doesn't light him up; it's only an exciting little joke.
Anyway, our lovers, Nikki and Al, have a little scam. They target business men at their hotels, Nikki as bait, Al to finish them off. An overdose of the mickey kills one of their victims and the lovers hit the road, chased by the cops and by a rugby legend whose pedophile video starring himself they have accidentally acquired. He has to keep THAT secret. So we have a chase for most of the movie, a kind of imitation Natural Born Killers (1994) cum Wild at Heart (1990) with some original spin and some diverting down under culture clips including the cops using sunscreen to protect the tips of their ears from skin cancer while the hole in the ozone layer grows.
Francis O'Connor, who plays Nikki is a little on the ugly/sexy side, mostly ugly, but Matt Day, who plays Al, adores her as a little boy might adore his mother. His problem is a homicidal temper and a blatant disregard for human life, except his own and Nikki's. He kills whenever the opportunity presents itself, it seems. Her problem is she kinda likes killing these men.
Neither one of these Aussie trash types is overly bright, but then neither are the cops.
Bill Bennett's story is derivative and banal but there are some witty elements. The scene in which one of the cops pretends to be kosher is funny, and the couple living on a nuclear testing site is amusing. The leg of kangaroo and the way Nikki has to get out from under the mark's dead body are nice touches. Alas, we have the ending. Bennett had a little fun with it, but his spin comes off as stupid and in sharp contrast with what proceeded it, which was mostly realistic.
Jump-cuts? It's just a mannerism. Bennett will get over it.
(Note: Over 500 of my movie reviews are now available in my book "Cut to the Chaise Lounge or I Can't Believe I Swallowed the Remote!" Get it at Amazon!) -
=G=12 January 2002"Kiss of Kill" tells of an Aussie "Bonnie & Clyde" couple on the run through the boonies of South Australia. This austere flick is a mediocre watch at best with the only interesting facet being we don't really know which of the couple is doing all the killing. Unfortunately, we're not given a reason to care about anyone in the film save our natural desire to see the cops catch the bad guys. Hence, we remain casual and detached observers trying to wring whatever interest there is to be found from the meager substance of the story which echoes of many films of the past.
Footnote: IFC preshow factoids claimed it took Bennett 10 years to write the screenplay and the script was zero pages long. Whatever. -
Mitch-425 December 1998The comments from "Niro" have really got it right. This movie seems to belong squarely in that niche genre, the couple caught up in violence, lovers on the run. And it *is* that, and does as good a job of it as I've seen, even while breaking out of your expectations for that story line.
Some of the plot development is worth reserving as a surprise; so I can't be specific about my satisfaction that this movie does not, after all, celebrate or justify violence -- as some other entries in this subgenre callously slip into doing.
All the performances were carried out well. I particularly liked Barry Otto in a smallish but crucial supporting role, and am fast learning to stop confusing him with Geoffrey Rush. -
Staff-425 January 1999What was with the jump cuts in this movie? After a decent opening scene the rest was a great bore. Throw this one on the barbee!
-
If Frances O'Connor and Matt Day don't get regular, steady acting work and eventually become big stars, I'll be very surprised. Despite all the other good things about "Kiss Or Kill", the two of them hold the movie together. O'Connor is sexy and tough, and Day is a solid leading man. The rest of the cast does a good job, especially the cops. The plot is a little loose, but it kind of makes you guess as to what's going on. In the end, this is a must see. Go rent it right away!!!
-
bullions2713 January 2002While watching this horrid Indie on IFC late last night, I thought this would make a wonderful promo for Mad TV. Here's why. They did a skit once with the Sopranos on a What If... the series were on PAXTV. The comedy here is because PAX is a very family-oriented channel, all the swears and vulgar stuff on the Sopranos had to be edited out. This made it look extremely choppy, and silly, and at the same times hilarious.
Kiss or Kill is exactly the same thing. Nearly every other frame has these choppy scenes. No fluidness whatsoever. Doing it once every now and then might make it look unique or present drama, but not EVERY OTHER FRAME. -
wfalcone17 June 2006I thoroughly enjoyed Kiss or Kill. I thought it was well acted, stylistically shot and terribly romantic! I recommend this film for couples that want to make it a Blockbuster night. Written and directed by Bill Bennett, this movie is about two cons who accidentally end up on the wrong side of the law and on the lam. Frances O'Connor absolutely sizzles stealing almost every scene. Matt Day holds his own as her tough as nails boyfriend with the big heart. Kiss or Kill's supporting cast charms as well with each character introduced breathing new life, meaning and comedy to the movie. I didn't think there was one bad performance in it. Kiss or Kill was witty, clever and, in some scenes laugh out loud funny. Kiss or Kill get's my seal of approval. Bust out the popcorn!
-
Niro29 November 1998From the superbly jumpy cinematography to the tremendous performances from the leads, this is the "lovers on the run" film that you likely thought you'd seen already... until you see it.
An obviously indie film set in Australia, this is a look at two small time cons (the remarkable Frances O'Connor & Matt Day) who stumble onto the wrong mark.
OK, so you say you've still seen this before. Kiddie porn, an ex-big league Aussie soccer player, oddball characters you really haven't ever witnessed and some surprisingly (unstereotypically) good cops make this a wonderful treat.
This is what the dreadful "Thelma and Louise," the somewhat better "Thunderbolt and Lightfoot" and all those road films which followed should have been.
Rent it, buy it, or miss out,
4 Niro~Stars [of 4] -
SKG-223 February 1999The only other Bill Bennett film I've seen is TWO IF BY SEA, but after this unusual and entertaining film, he's forgiven. This was nothing like I expected it to be. Sure, it's a crime movie, lovers-on-the-run movie, and a road movie, but it's a whole lot more. We get to care about the characters a lot more than we would in a formula Hollywood picture, and we also explore the relationship between Nikki and Al. Bennett's style also fits, with his use of jump-cutting and no music on the soundtrack. If there was a fault with this film, it's that sometimes I was a little confused about where the plot was going, but that's only a quibble. The twists this movie takes will definitely keep you interested, and Bennett deserves praise for going off the beaten path.
-
EvilZephyr28 September 2005Bill Bennett and the entire crew put together a great film in "Kiss or Kill." After first viewing the trailer on the VHS of The Jackal, I waited two years before coming across this movie. Both Matt Day and Francis O'Connor play a great role. The story is marvelously put together and one you will have to watch closely. This movie was the breakout role for Francis O'Connor, which she can also be seen in Bedazzled, Windtalkers, and About Adam.
This film made me a fan of Australian film. Much better than a 6.3 ranking, head over to overstock.com and pick up a copy. It is only, ONLY, $2.00. Best two bucks you'll ever spend! Highly recommended! -
Amazing, australian, creeping and gripping! These are the adjectives that suit to this movie. It is a masterpiece about trust. How much do you trust your partner? That is the issue! and everything becomes more complicated if you are also psychotic like the protagonists of the movie. In fact nikky is an almost mad and disturbed girl, grown up with a terrible memory: her mother's murder; now she is a thief who robs the victims with her partner Al : a wealthy, strange guy. One night while they are robbing a rich manager in Sidney,something goes wrong: after he has been drugged, he dies and besides they find a videotape who showed the unusual sexual enjoyments of a very famous rugby ex-champion. So, Nikky and Al decide to flee to Perth(on the other shore of Australia) and are chased by the police and Zipper Doyle(the rugby ex-player) who wants to recover his video. During the journey trough Australia, they are involved in some strange deaths and they start to be suspicious of each other;but something is happening and nobody is understanding it ! Among huge australian landscapes, motels owners, sage aborigines, mysterious "carsleepers", odd desert stories, kangoo meat, Al and Nikky are going to find themselves and to figure their relationship out. Frances O' Connor is resounding and the editing incredible; the story is gonna grip you by its frenetic rhythm. A Must!
-
The cool thing about this movie is that it was made in South Australia in my friend's hometown of Ceduna. Okay it was annoying him telling me where all of the scenes were and how they were shot out of sequence, but generally you wouldn't know unless you have lived there for a while. Kiss or Kill is a road movie and it is supposed to be shot as they travel across Australia to Perth yet it is shot almost entirely in and around Ceduna. It is interesting though how the filmmakers make it seem that you are journeying for quite a way even though in real life they do not.
I liked Kiss or Kill. It was an art-house movie that made it onto the NewVision label and distributed across the United States. I think that is pretty good for a homegrown movie. Australia seems to be producing a lot of art-house movies now though Kiss or Kill is more light on the art house than other movies. What did annoy me was the number of cuts that they would use during the scenes. It is difficult to explain but they would jump a couple of seconds in the action which gave it a different quality but it did annoy me. There are a number of reasons why they did it this way but it could simply be a style that the director wanted.
This movie is a movie about a couple of juvenile delinquents who lure married business men into hotel rooms and rob them. One day they kill the victim so decide to flee the city and go to Perth. Unfortunately they have a video in which a very famous football player is recorded basically being a pedophile. It is possible that the businessman was blackmailing him but now the video is in the hands of these kids and the footballer wants it back. Thus they have the police on their tail as well as the footballer. Then people start dying and it seems possible that one of the couple are killing them. We believe that Nick, the woman, is killing people in her sleep, and it comes to a point where she believes it.
Kiss or Kill is a story with a good plot though thematically it is empty. It looks at the characters of the juveniles. Nick absolutely hates men after she watches her mother get torched when she was a kid. Thus as men were being killed she believed that it was a psychological aversion to men. We also explore the relationship between them as they struggle to come to terms with murder and they fact that they might be caught. This is where their ride comes to an end because even though they are not moralistic, the fact that they are to be incriminated for many murders they look like everything is at an end.
Even though it is a good movie, it does not raise any deep themes nor does it leave you thinking. The end slipped into standard Hollywood rubbish but Kiss or Kill is a good movie to watch, especially to support the South Australian Film Industry. -
wildpete4 January 1999The story is clever, the direction is fresh and original, the dialogue sparkles. A whodunnit of a different variety. I can't wait to see another movie by this director/writer.
-
Surprisingly, the genre hasn't been worn down to the nub, despite dozens upon dozens of examples pointing to the contrary.
Annoying, overused, Scorsesean jump cuts aside, "Kiss or Kill" has enough good things going for it to make it the best Aussie import I've come across in a great long while.
The director is Bill Bennett, whose other noteworthy effort was a Sandra Bullock picture that wasn't really worth bragging about (has anyone made a Sandra Bullock picture worth bragging about?) He's not too keen as a director, really, cross-cutting scenes that haven't got anything to do with each other, overdoing the jump cuts to force a free-and-easy atmosphere onto the proceedings, but as a scenarist he's excellent. The plot begins like any other ordinary "Bonnie and Clyde" xerox, but it flows free from there, as if Bennett just let the characters take over, rather than the plot conventions.
The acting, uniformly, is pretty close to fantastic. There's Frances O'Conner as the fast-moving but slow-thinking Nikki, who as a child (opening sequence) sees something so horrible at her home that it's no wonder she chose a life of crime. Matt Day is equally skilled as her lover/partner, though we aren't given as much insight into his character as we are Nikki's. Chris Haywood and Andrew S. Albert are complete naturals as the cops on their trail. For those two detectives, they get a brilliant variation on the "Pulp Fiction" bacon discussion that is the film's highlight.
If Bill Bennett fails directing the film into Tarantino-esque jazz rhythms, he succeeds ultimately by giving us an Australian outback that's so barren and unmistakably evil that one might think the "Mad Max" road barbarians were already bopping around, not patient enough to wait for the apocalypse. Characters talk of "unfathomable tunnels under the desert" or live in an abandoned nuclear testing facility, and all through the film there's subtle hints that the outback is one spooky, spooky place. Also, Bennett's decision to use no music (and I mean NO music) is a masterstroke, and he employs a champion cinematographer named Malcolm McCulloch to give the film an eerie, chilly atmosphere. Balance that atmosphere with the occasional joke and cheery scene, and "Kiss or Kill" keeps an audience on its toes.
Films like this usually disappoint as they drift into convention at the climax and towards the summary. Creativity in the third act of most movies these days seems quite lacking, in fact, which made the last third of "Kiss or Kill" such a pleasure to watch. I'll just say that thankfully, the surprises and expected twists were, like the rest of the movie, driven by character and personality, instead of the requirements of the genre. -
I've never so much wanted to go across the Nullaboring in my life after seeing this. We have an impressive road movie thriller, where as an Adelaide'n here's another that has done us proud. Bill Bennett is someone who makes low budget features that I like. Here we have a romantic couple, who'm both have had bad childhoods, Francis O'connor, a victim of pedophilia, who was interfered with by a footy captain, Zipper Doyle who makes underage porno's. These con artists/thieve's, latest victim is accidentally killed or was he, when sexually lured by O'connor. So our young enterprising two end on going on the lam, with a suitcase, containing not exactly what they were after. In it is a porno, featuring Doyle and who very much looks like, O'Connor, who is quick to deny it. Kiss Or Kill is very well structured film, where as it progresses, more victims surface, after being visited by the two, but who's killing who. There are some great locations used, including a radioactive site where our too take temporary sanction, by occupants, Otto and wife. As in dining, the film too shows you the dangers of having a steamboat too close to you. Matt Day and O'Connor is especially, are good, while Haywood as a veteran cop with a heart, is what you expect, impressive as always, that dining scene, regarding the bacon I loved. We can understand why the implicated Doyle is so enraged, in his frantic need to retrieve that tape which could finish him. As to the fates of our two lamsters, it's wonderfully no where as bad, as you think it will be for them, where in these situations, there can be more light at the end of the tunnel. Cool, solid scene by scene S.A. thriller, with a haunting opening.
-
aspf222422 August 2006This film is a good example of what's bad with Australian Cinema: Blatantly imitating American Cinema, without understanding the how or why. This is a run-of-the-mill ripoff of your American killers-on-the-run road movie. They've got the usual blood and guts and gory throat slashings; That's pretty predictable in a movie I'm guessing they hoped would appeal to the American Market.
Where "Kiss or Kill" fails is the characters. The leads are miserable, boring wretches. If they'd died driving their car off a cliff in the first 30 minutes, it would have been a better movie for it. The cops chasing them are, well, cops chasing them. The story is lame; killers on the run. Will the cops catch them? Who knows? Who cares? There is nothing to hold the viewer to this story.
This movie came out at the same time as the mediocre "Men in Black II." I recall the Producer of "Kiss or Kill" complaining that in the face of this Hollywood Blockbuster, no one would see a poor little quality Aussie film. Well, I saw this and it was a disappointment. I did watch it through to the end, but it was tedious going. The production qualities and acting aren't bad; It's the lame story and script and uninspired direction that kills it.
It's supposed to be a suspense, but for that to work you have to care. If "Silence of the Lambs" was 2 hours of nothing but blood and guts it would have bombed too. But what made that movie come alive was the characters and the script. If it was a Student Film, that could have been forgiven. But as an "Art House wannabe Blockbuster" it fails miserably.
If you do like this genre, there are much better movies. 1 Star out of 4.