Wick's Review

Summary - Great 4.0

Kill Me Three Times is a terrifically entertaining piece of pulp fiction. Three deadly sins – wrath, greed, lust – play out in darkly comic circumstances. Set in a sunny beach town, it’s a ripper from Down Under.

The mere seven person cast seems larger. Simon Pegg ably anchors it as a hitman with an entitled attitude. Teresa Palmer, Luke Hemsworth, Alice Braga, Sullivan Stapleton and Bryan Brown also stand out.

The movie starts in reverse chronological order, opening with the hitman’s demise – Kill Me One Time per a title card. It then reverts in time to fill in blanks from the storyline, often from alternate points-of-view, making for a pleasing complexity. Genre movies should all be so thoughtful, even if focused on stupidity.

Stupid decisions get made throughout the movie, with people getting shot when you don’t expect them to get shot, even though pretty much everybody gets knocked off by the time everything gets tied together.

A ripper from Down Under? Kill Me Three Times is a triple ripper.

Acting - Great 4.0

Seven terrific Aussie stars – well most are Aussie – make Kill Me Three Times a sunbaked sinfest.

Simon Pegg isn’t a natural hitman, being physically unprepossessing and all. However, he dresses the part and is more than a good enough actor to pull it off. Most interesting is that he doesn’t have to carry any of the comedy. He’s a straightman, well a hitman straightman. BTW, Pegg’s a Brit playing an Aussie.

Alice Braga plays a woman in love with a guy who isn’t her husband. Braga’s got an understated sensuality that makes her a credible object of desire. She’s Brazilian, not playing an Aussie.

Luke Hemsworth looks like a more buff Matt Damon, only he’s clearly a Hemsworth. Yep, there’s a third Hemsworth brother. Actually a first Hemsworth brother, Luke being Chris and Liam’s oldest brother.

Teresa Palmer & Sullivan Stapleton play a highly immoral married couple. Each has moviestar charisma, even if heman Stapleton often has egg on his face. Palmer is in two movies at the multiplex right now, Cut Bank being the other, in which she stars with Liam Hemsworth. If she stars with Chris, she’ll have all three.

Callan Mulvey glowers impressively.

Bryan Brown, he of The Thorn Birds and Breaker Morant, is nails as a bad cop.

Steve Le Marquand cuts an impressively slimy figure as the hitman’s opening victim. That’s him getting rubbed-out in the nearby trailer. He’s actually the eighth cast member, albeit only in one scene.

Film - Great 4.0

Banal evil set to seductive surf music and set on Australia’s West Coast characterizes Kill Me Three Times. Think of it as Aussie Pulp Fiction. Tarantino would laugh his ass off at the spectacular killings coming from unexpected directions, with lots of spurting blood, sometimes spouting blood.

Edge - Sordid 3.2

Dirty deeds done, well, not dirt cheap. Lots of money drives the plot, which turns on a bullet through the brain for more than one character. An Edge score of 3.2 marks Kill Me Three Times as very sordid indeed.

Reality - Surreal 2.6

Highly Surreal

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