Kill! (1971)

KILL! is a plodding European thriller that feels like a more nihilistic version of a Bond story. The film opens with a series of brutal slayings before Interpol begin to investigate and discover that a vigilante is going around taking down career criminals, from drug dealers to pornographers. Interpol's finest agents are tasked with tracking down the killer responsible and stopping him before he kills again. The production values are low on this film and the direction is poor, with sloppy editing throughout. It's a notably violent production that manages to have somebody gunned down every five minutes or so, but the quality is a disappointment. As with many European films of the era, it manages to bag some surprisingly big names in the cast. James Mason and Curt Jurgens are the superiors, Stephen Boyd a scruffy agent, and the glamorous Jean Seberg the blonde heroine of the hour.

Fascinating both in terms of its structural approach to genre, subversive political themes, and how it obliquely reflects the intensely personal lives of the director/writer and star. Seberg's still then-husband directs her in some tightly scripted and intimate scenes regarding themes of infidelity. And this while such issues and an unplanned pregnancy by another man became public thanks to politically motivated interference by the FBI.There are clear influences from Jean-Pierre Melville and Godard, with a pop art approach to American gangster iconography. The Brad KILLian anti-hero being reminiscent of Lemmy Caution, or even Caine's Carter in a manner. The heroin-busting plot is cursory, but Gary's slyly scripted dialogue contains radical subtext and some hilariously overt depictions of native insurgency, with Afghani Sufis and a kid nicknamed Che Guevara.Gary shoots some early night scenes with Seberg in dark clothing, accentuating her beautiful profile and bright hair as if floating in space. Chiaroscuro lighting returns later in the film, but there are also interesting sequences of filmed executions being repeated for thematic emphasis. Aldo Sambrell's familiar genre presence is also used to great effect, despite it being not much more than an extended cameo and glorious execution.There is also an insane pop art musical interlude that cuts between the heroin dealers discussing canine-human pornography and dealing to children with scenes of Seberg and Boyd engaging in a strangely negotiated coupling of their own. All of which is scored by none other than Memphis Slim on piano, giving a bluesy vocal rendition of the theme song that contrasts well with Edda Dell'Orso and Doris Troy's.**************************spoiler below******************************It isn't until the likes of Johnnie To, John Woo, Tarantino and of course Scorsese that we would see genre played with in quite the same masterful manner and with such witty layers. One need only watch James Mason's dying visions of machine-gunned, undead gangsters, Sufi-leaping heavenward to understand that what they are watching is not a typical formulaic genre entry.

An absolutely dire thriller about an ex-Interpol agent turned assassin who tries to wipe out porn merchants and drug dealers in Pakistan. This is confusing, nasty and atrociously directed, with an extremely high death rate but little else. Stephen Boyd must have wondered what he had done wrong to go from the giddy heights of Ben Hur to this shambolic mess. As for James Mason, it's almost enough to make a grown man cry to see such a fine actor in such garbage.

This movie has suspense action and love all rolled into one loop. An earlier Die Hard movie and this movie is a great emotion builder. The cream of the crop and do not listen to anybody else. Do not miss this movie because their are big stars of the time and did I mention action. Shootouts, interrogations, espionage.