Review of Kill Me Three Times (2015) by Andy K — 09 Apr 2015

Kill Me Three Times has the feel of an Edgar Wright movie - where at times the latter's fast cutting would seem more than welcome to jolt the movie out of unending catatonia - but that is perhaps the despair emanating from the overwhelming number of missed opportunities clouding the reality which is that the movie is as flat as a pint of beer that was left out for a week. The idea of drinking it might seem remotely amusing, but the actual experience would be anything but; the same applies to watching Kill Me Three Times.

Set along the beautiful coast of Australia, with the cinematography being the only decent takeaway from this genre shlock, Kriv Stenders' Kill Me Three Times adapts and fails at capitalizing on age old Tarantino tropes as it proves to be an unnecessarily muddled black comedy thriller with several plotlines going on at the same towards the ultimate goal that is the death of Alice through an assassin, a desperate gambler, a loan shark, an abusive drunk, a police officer, and a receptionist through multiple converging threads. It takes a special form of skill to **** something like this up, as under the hands of more crafty filmmakers, the ingredients of Kill Me Three Times might've been a delicious Chicken Parmigiana, but instead, it's a discount nuke-a-meal a hobo would toss aside for better alternatives - like the carcass of a dingo - without thinking twice.

In scenes where the punchlines are more telegraphed than an impending jump scare in a horror sequence i.e. a large character getting into a wobbly tiny car balanced by a car jack, the largely uninspired writing by newcomer James McFarland gives way to dour spoken and unspoken laughs by most of the cast, where not even Pegg's comedic timing and overall performance is able to save this humorless malady that relies on arterial blood sprays for laughs over actual wit, and where most of the talented cast are squandered in this surprising Australian misfire in which everyone gives off a vibe of wanting to be elsewhere as soon as they cash in their paycheck.