Just as the Coens' Blood Simple is nothing like as good as their later movies, so Dahl's Kill Me Again is not in the same league as Red Rock West (1993). It is a derivative film noir in which Joanne Whalley double-crosses her partner in crime (Michael Madsen), then employs a private investigator to help her fake her own death, but then she betrays him too. Not too smart of her, especially with Madsen on her tail and the mobsters the two of them ripped off on the trail.
The movie begins with a boring credits sequence showing desert scenery, and throughout the movie the musical score doesn't fir the story, tending towards enervation rather than energy. Kilmer, playing the PI, is miscast, or rather the decision to make the character a PI doesn't seem to fit the story. I don't know if Dahl and his co-writer were thinking of Double Indemnity when they wrote this but the comparison does them no credit. Kill Me Again lacks the spunky dialogue of the best film noir, and Kilmer's PI is not hard bitten enough or cynical enough or really anything enough for the part. Whalley may be sexy but she isn't seductive enough for the role of the femme fatale. Probably the movie would have been better with Madsen playing the PI and Kilmer playing the vengeful boyfriend, but hey, hindsight is 20-20.
A waste of time. Go for Red Rock West instead, of which this movie is a pre-echo and a faint one.
The movie begins with a boring credits sequence showing desert scenery, and throughout the movie the musical score doesn't fir the story, tending towards enervation rather than energy. Kilmer, playing the PI, is miscast, or rather the decision to make the character a PI doesn't seem to fit the story. I don't know if Dahl and his co-writer were thinking of Double Indemnity when they wrote this but the comparison does them no credit. Kill Me Again lacks the spunky dialogue of the best film noir, and Kilmer's PI is not hard bitten enough or cynical enough or really anything enough for the part. Whalley may be sexy but she isn't seductive enough for the role of the femme fatale. Probably the movie would have been better with Madsen playing the PI and Kilmer playing the vengeful boyfriend, but hey, hindsight is 20-20.
A waste of time. Go for Red Rock West instead, of which this movie is a pre-echo and a faint one.