![]() ![]() And while the actors all have their moments, nobody gets much of a chance to develop a flavorful character in a film that tries too hard on every level. ![]() Pegg’s cold-blooded killer, smirking with amusement at all the small-town villainy, is a less likable peg (sorry) for comic-strip carnage than everyone seems to think. But Kill Me Three Times is too self-conscious to be anything much beyond smart-assy and tiresome. There’s nothing wrong with McFarland’s plotting, which is more than sound enough to work, especially with Stenders and editor Jill Bilcock hustling the action along at a driving pace, accelerated by Johnny Klimek’s music. He witnesses a series of attempted murders, scams, deceptions and acts of violent revenge, intervening with a blackmail scheme of his own when he spies a chance to double his fee. The humor derives mostly from Charlie finding himself not the expected executioner so much as the observer. It was selected to be screened in the Contemporary World Cinema section at the 2014 Toronto International Film Festival. The main players in a town whose other inhabitants are mostly kept offscreen are Nathan Webb ( Sullivan Stapleton), a dentist in deep with gambling debt and manipulated by his ruthless receptionist wife Lucy ( Teresa Palmer) wealthy bar owner Jack Taylor ( Callan Mulvey), whose violent jealousy has pushed away his battered bride Alice ( Alice Braga) her buff surfer-mechanic boyfriend Dylan ( Luke Hemsworth), who is planning their escape together and corrupt cop Bruce (a self-parodying Bryan Brown). Kill Me Three Times is a 2014 black comedy thriller film directed by Kriv Stenders, which follows a hit man who falls into schemes of blackmail, murder, and revenge. McFarland and Stenders piece together the events that led to Charlie’s demise with puzzle-like dexterity, only gradually revealing who hired him. But this ain’t no sun-kissed restful paradise. ![]() Cinematographer Geoffrey Simpson turns this imposing natural setting into a dynamic canvas for sinister deeds, with a muscular shooting style and vivid embrace of color and light. That would be Eagles Nest, Western Australia, a sleepy coastal hamlet with miles of pristine beaches, presented here with wild bushland, desert sands and red rock gorges all within reach. In an opening voiceover, private detective and assassin-for-hire Charlie Wolfe ( Simon Pegg) announces his astonishment at dying in a place like this. Add in overdressed sets that call attention to themselves, heightened performance styles, skewed framing and cartoon violence, with the camera lavishing glossy money-shot adoration on every ribbon of bloodshed that explodes whenever bullet meets flesh. It continues with the non-sequential storytelling, divided into three time-shifting chapters (“Kill Me Once,” etc.) of overlapping action that allow key developments to be covered from different perspectives. That starts with the bold retro-graphic titles and swingin’ surf rock soundtrack, full of fat guitar licks. Maybe if McFarland, or director Kriv Stenders had tried to make Kill Me Three Times half as interesting as King cast it, you wouldn’t watch it feeling bored, bored, bored the whole time.But everything here feels borrowed from readily identifiable sources. West coast Australia, where the film was shot, certainly looks pretty, and there are a couple of nice explosions, but that’s about it. McFarland throws in a circuitous framing device to try and keep you on your toes, but often you’re just left confused as to the motivations of the characters, and why it is we should care about them once the first question is answered. All the dialogue from first-time screenwriter James McFarland is purely functional, and serves a story of insurance fraud and murder-for-hire that’s desperately lacking for inspiration or excitement. The fleeting fun of Pegg playing a baddie, or seeing Stapleton set to maximum bumble is all Kill Me Three Times has to offer, as it assembles a cast of characters not half so colorful as the stylized opening credits introducing them. The rest are diverting in spots simply for trying something a little different, whether it’s Simon Pegg as a mustachioed hitman, Sullivan Stapleton as a meek dentist, or the aforementioned Palmer as the dentist’s scheming wife. Not content to let brother Liam be the only Hemsworth with a derivative, Teresa Palmer-co-starring knockoff premiering at TIFF, Luke Hemsworth is the only player in Kill Me Three Times that’s squarely in their comfort zone (his: bland and hunky). ![]()
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