Customer Reviews

Kiss or Kill: The Ultimate Romantic Getaway (Full Screen Version)

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This low budget movie has action aplenty, a few murders, lots of swearing and some very good acting. Throw in a couple of plot twists and deadpan comedy and you get a very good way to waste an afternoon.

The movie is about a couple of small time criminals and the scam that goes wrong, which catapults them across the barren Australian outback. To say more would give stuff away. Just get the movie (available in Australia on DVD) and enjoy.

Kiss or Kill is one of my favorite movies, but this seller is lucky I don't call the FCC because it's against the law to distribute items without a copyright. THe DVD I received was PURE BOOTLEG. He used a black and white camcorder to record the original version and then sold it for a HUGE profit. I want my money back!! He doesn't even deserve one star, but I had to give him one. DO NOT BUY FROM THIS DEALER.

RATED TWO THUMBS UP FROM SISKEL & EBERT-HOW DO YOU TOP THAT? GREAT PERFORMANCES FROM MATT DAY AND FRANCES O'CONNOR, MAKE THIS A SURE-FIRE HIT. A PAIR OF SEXY CON ARTISTS WHO EARN THEIR LIVING BY RIPPING OFF BUSINESSMEN WHOM NICKI PICKS UP IN BARS. WHEN ONE OF THEIR TARGETS ACCIDENTALLY DIES THE COUPLE HAS TO FLEE. WHEN EVERYONE THEY ENCOUNTER ENDS UP DEAD, THE DESPERATE PAIR HAVE NO CHOICE BUT TO SUSPECT EACH OTHER. GREAT MOVIE! WINNER OF 5 AUSTRALIAN FILM INSTITUTE AWARDS, INCLUDING BEST PICTURE AND BEST DIRECTOR!

I saw this movie years ago and wow! The movie starts off rather jarringly, with lots of jump cuts skipping through the action. At first it's annoying, but then you stop noticing it, though the technique continues throughout the movie.

The story is an on-the-edge on-the-run kind of story, but these main characters end up being very compelling ... mainly because of Frances O'Connor, who has gone on to a successful career in other movies and PBS fare. She's amazing in this movie, and carries it through.

The opening scene shows the little daughter drawing in her coloring book at the table while her mother, dressed in a bathrobe, is at the kitchen counter cooking and talking to the child. A knock comes at the door; the mother answers. The ex-husband douses her with gasoline, throws a match on her, and torches her to death before the eyes of the daughter, who backs warily away from the scene, the flames reflected in her eyes.

This is one of the great shots in cinema, because the wary look in the little girl's eyes is so disproportionate to the enormous effects the event is going to have on the rest of her life.

She grows up to be a crook, working with her sick boyfriend to fleece businessmen out of their money. She lures them to a hotel, spikes their champagne, and she and the boyfriend take the money.

Trouble starts when in her victim's briefcase is a videotape of the famous soccer player, Zipper Doyle, having sex with an underage boy, then a woman. The girl recklessly calls Doyle's voice mail and shouts "We've got your videotape, you pervert!"

Doyle has connections in the police department, and as the couple flees he is only a step behind them. We also see two detectives finding out who the couple is and going in search of them, just behind Doyle.

Along the way the boy starts killing people. By the time they are finally arrested, he has the girl tied up for fear that she will blow him off to the police as a murderer.

They flee through the hottest and most remote parts of Australia. The police are scandalized by the heat, and offer each other sunblock.

The nature of their bond is the real mystery that drives the movie. They seem to be bonded more by hate and revenge than love. They have sex, but she confirms to us by voice-over that he knows nothing about her.

She is always inquiring about his health. His back hurts, the sun hurts his eyes.

For her own part, she sleepwalks, and he has to leave the motel room to find her. Her sleepwalking seems connected to gas pumps, therefore to fire.

Small things occur that are not insignificant. He tells her the woman in the Zipper Doyle tape looks like her. She denies this. One of the cops, seeing the same video, says "That's not her, I know that woman."

The film is both frustrating and intriguing by virtue of the fact that the girl is crazier than the boy, and the boy is crazier than the girl. After their arrest and release and the death of Zipper Doyle in a car accident, they are free and clear. The movie ends with the boy coming into the kitchen where the girl is cutting up bread. When he touches her she pushes him across the room with the knife at his throat, as though to kill him. Then she smiles and says, "Just kidding," kissing him pertly. THE END

Very original, beautifully made, filled with jump cuts which don't affect the continuity of the dialogue. A point is being made here, a point about violence and love and recklessness. But the film keeps us in the dark about the precise theme underlying the action. This in itself makes it fascinating.

The work of a great talent with (I hope) a great future.