Review of Killshot (2008) by Edward B — 29 Jun 2009

After going through four years of being delayed, shelved, reshot, and reedited, it's hard not to notice how Killshot has been affected by its troubled production. It clocks in at under 95 minutes in length, and it feels like many pieces of the puzzle, character arks, and important subplots have been omitted in favour of a sleek, quick, and harmless action thriller.

However, this is based on an Elmore Leonard novel, and no amount of reassembly can take away from the colourful and richly thought out characters that are always present in Leonard's work. Mickey Rourke, Joseph Gordon Levitt, Diane Lane, and Thomas Jane all give top notch performances. There is a lot of great tension in the film's more suspenseful moments. The drama does work. But ultimately, it feels rushed.

Carmen Colson and her husband Wayne are placed in a Witness Protection Program as a result of being hunted by a ruthless assassin. But we never fully understand why they come out of Witness Protection. This subplot is somewhere on the cutting room floor as our Johnny Knoxville and Rosario Dawson's performances. In fact, much of what could have made this film great is left on that same floor. Ultimately, Killshot is a decent thriller that was neglected by the Weinstein brothers and left to suffer a straight-to-DVD fate.