The Kill Room, 2023.
Directed by Nicol Paone.
Starring Uma Thurman, Samuel L. Jackson, Joe Manganiello, Maya Hawke, Debi Mazar, Dree Hemingway, Larry Pine, Gionna Daddio, Matthew Maher, Mike Doyle, Leah McSweeney, James Di Giacomo, Amy Keum, Brandon Curry, Jennifer Kim, Denise Grayson, Nikolai Tsankov, Candy Buckley, Clare Severinghaus, Zora Casebere, Linda Summer, Ethan Herschenfeld, Neal Davidson, Tom Pecinka, Noam Shapiro, Jordon Bolden, Danny Plaza, and Alexander Sokovikov.
SYNOPSIS:
A hitman, his boss, an art dealer and a money-laundering scheme that accidentally turns the assassin into an overnight avant-garde sensation, one that forces her to play the art world against the underworld.
This piece was written during the 2023 WGA and SAG-AFTRA strike. Without the labor of the writers and actors currently on strike, The Kill Room wouldn’t exist.
Director Nicol Paone and screenwriter Jonathan Jacobson’s The Kill Room put a mildly refreshing spin on the usual antics of mocking what wealthy elites see in the snobby art world and its abstract work, bringing a hitman (Joe Manganiello) into it as a money-laundering scheme front, unexpectedly getting in touch with his emotions and releasing anger by splashing together several expressive works pointing to a tortured soul who was forced into a life of crime and suffocating targets with plastic bags. Naturally, Reggie becomes known as The Bagman in the art world, realizing that he has an opportunity to change his life into something he is surprisingly passionate about. One could also take this as well-intentioned commentary that violent men can reform and that some type of therapy is always useful for accomplishing that.
The other half of the narrative involves struggling art curator Patrice (Uma Thurman), a strung-out woman hopped up on Adderall and incapable of making sales. Working alongside her loyal assistant Grace (Maya Hawke), their business gets bleak. That is until Samuel L. Jackson’s Jewish crime boss Gordon (running a bakery as smoke and mirrors for his crimes), gets tipped off about the art gallery and has the realization that such an establishment has all the makings of a clean way to launder dirty money, especially in an environment where stings are becoming more common, creating more cause for concern.
There are rival art gallery curators, a booming demand in The Bagman’s increasingly prolific portfolio (one painting per week is created as an inventory diversion to give further credibility to the scheme), and pretentiously sycophantic buyers who are oblivious to the darker nature behind the paintings and driving up the price. However, the film feels a bit familiar and generic whenever the focus is elsewhere, especially on the criminal underworld. It also disappointingly fails to dig into Reggie as a character truly.
Admittedly, sometimes there is confusion on whether the film is trying to derive humor from what the rich find artistic and monetary value in or if it thinks The Bagman’s paintings are genuinely stimulating, but it is nevertheless engaging watching Joe Manganiello tap into a softer side. There is still a montage of him suffocating people with plastic bags as the inspiration for his work, but it’s also not glorified or intended to be entertaining, appropriately conveyed as something dark that happens to be his profession for reasons that are explained later on. Murder is not something he wants to be doing, although the art proves to be a healthy release from that inner torment.
At roughly halfway, The Kill Room shifts from Reggie’s rise as an art world superstar to dealing with the growing conflict it causes with the crime bosses he and Gordon report to, especially if his identity is linked to the Bagman name. It would be unfair to say that these scenes are boring, but that creative energy is lost for a while, at least until the group decides to escape the crime world once and for all (Patrice is also roped in under the thumb due to her association with Reggie and Gordon), leading to an audacious artistic creation dubbed “The Kill Room.”
There isn’t a component here to single out as outstanding, but with such a likable ensemble (not to mention marking an on-screen reunion between Uma Thurman and Samuel L. Jackson for the first time since Pulp Fiction) and a clever take on healing and finding a new lease on life, The Kill Room is alive and vibrant enough to work.
Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ ★ ★ / Movie: ★ ★ ★
Robert Kojder is a member of the Chicago Film Critics Association and the Critics Choice Association. He is also the Flickering Myth Reviews Editor. Check here for new reviews, follow my Twitter or Letterboxd, or email me at MetalGearSolid719@gmail.com
