Customer Reviews

Easy Kill

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The release of AMERICAN GIGOLO in 1980 resurrected interest in the 1940s noir style, leaving BLADE RUNNER and MIAMI VICE in its wake, as well as a flood of cheaper, direct-to-video films that were shot throughout the 1980s.

EASY KILL (1989) is a typical example, reasonably entertaining, not much better or worse than any of the other low-budgeters. It's got the usual tiny cast and few sparse sets, all to keep the cost down.

I bought EASY KILL because it stars Jane Badler, best known as the evil alien in V. Others may get it for Frank Stallone (Sly's brother). Cameron Mitchell (THE TOOLBOX MURDERS) has a small role as a bartender. You may wish to see this film if you're a fan of any of these actors, but there's not much here otherwise.

Story concerns ex-cop Frank Stallone, who owns a bar. One night a beautiful but troubled woman enters (the requisite femme fatale, played by Jane Badler). Stallone tries to learn what's bothering her. She claims her husband wants to kill her. Well, being a femme fatale, of course she's lying. She ensares Stallone in a plot that involves drugs and murder and betrayals.

This is a real low-budget effort. The house is nice, but not a rich person's house. Ever notice that in these direct-to-video efforts, they often shoot in some middle class house that we're supposed to believe is in a real expensive neighborhood? And it doesn't look it.

Noir films are noted for their hyper-stylized dialogue (to the point of parody in the noirish and excellent STREETS OF FIRE), but EASY KILL's dialogue is remarkably bland. And they keep repeating the same bland remarks. I lost count of how many times Stallone begins a sentence with "Look."

"Look, don't worry."

"But I am worried. I'm sorry I got you into this."

"Hey, don't be sorry."

"But I am sorry."

"Look, it's all right."

Another oddity: the film seems to have been shot silent, then dubbed in afterwards. All the dialogue sounds disembodied, without ambient sound, as if it was all shot in a sound studio. Doesn't matter if the location is inside a moving car, in an alley, or in a house, the dialogue has that same clear, bland quality, unaffected by surroundings. The lips are mostly in sync, although once Badler's lips are grossly out of sync.

I'm guessing they shot the entire film silent to save costs, then had the actors dub all their lines in a sound stage over a few days.

The story is reasonably entertaining if you like the actors, but nothing special.

This DVD is full screen. No special features, apart from a few trailers.

Although this film was not a classic by any standards, after having bought a copy some time back, (and it was found purely by accident and is very rare, so I'm glad I got it), it does have its moments. Frank Stallone, who has had success in his own right as a blues/jazz singer and has done a few films too, is quite solid and interesting to watch as the lead who is drawn in by a beautiful woman whose aid he has come to. But of course, she is not quite what she appears.

Of course, when are guys going to learn that you don't go near these mysterious femme fatales, but let's face it, they always have us by the balls because they are so pretty and men just cannot resist getting involved. That's our tragedy, all we want to do is help and we get our fingers burnt, but for women like this, let them burn!

Jane Badler is very sexy and she is convincing throughout, but I had no doubt she would be after seeing her as the evil Diana in V, so I knew she could be play bad with ease, but this time, I got to see her in underwear and I got to see her topless, so it was even more understandable why he got involved with her.

I liked it I have to say. I wasn't sure whether I wanted to keep it, but I am going to now, since it's so rare, and it is a film that has its moments, a nice effort to be honest. Yes, the dialogue is pretty average at best, but who the hell cares? Most major Hollywood trash has dodgy scripts, like Basic Instinct for example, but at least this film tried. Pretty good ending too by the way.