"kill me again," or "val kilmer: private dick"

[carlyinrome]

I will freely admit that Kill Me Again may be the worst title ever. But, surprisingly, it isn't the worst film ever! It's actually a nice little noir piece, with a hunky and angsty private detective tormented by a femme fatale.

This film was released in 1989. Val's costar in this picture (aka, the femme fatale) is Joanne Whalley, who is listed in the credits as Joanne Whalley-Kilmer; they were married in 1988 after shooting Willow together. (They divorced in 1996, and you know me; I had to know. The internet tells me that Joanne listed Drew Barrymore as co-respondent in the divorce papers, which suggests that she thought her husband was having an affair. Val worked with Drew in 1995; they were in Batman Forever together. But Drew would have been twenty-one at the time the papers were filed, and nineteen or twenty when she and Val worked together; either way, Val is fifteen years older than she is. I'm not saying that kind of thing never happens; I'm just saying, until I see forensic evidence, I would like to pretend there is a single decent man walking the earth. Being attracted to men, even fictional ones (yes, I know Val Kilmer isn't fictional, but in proximity to my life he might as well be) is a big fucking deal for me, okay? What does seem verifiable, though, is that Joanne waited until her husband was out of the country shooting a movie to file the papers, and let him hear it from CNN, so she was pretty pissed about something.) ANYWAY. While Kill Me Again was filming, they were just newly married, and the chemistry onscreen is pretty serious.

Okay, I get that it's noir, but oy with the soundtrack already. It is very serious music time all the time! The intrigue! I get it!

Most pedestrian character names say what?

Good acting: portraying a complete lack of poker face while trying to have a poker face. Awesome.

I love how Jack is super calm, and then when you talk about his dead wife he goes from zero to kickass in ten seconds. What does it say about me that I like that?

The violence in this movie is so corny. Should I blame the era, or the genre?

ORAL FIXATION. In real life, I find smoking really unattractive; I watched my grandmother die from emphysema, smoking until her dying day, and so it mostly reminds me of ugly death, and also the smell aggravates my migraines, but I will admit that just the image is hot. The mouth and the hands. Guh.

Sign #56 this is a noir film: the femme fatale is in her underwear, for no reason, as often as possible.

Thing I love about this movie #11: Jack doesn't have a lot of people in his life, but the ones he does have really love him.

This was just a brief little aside, but it tells a lot, just in one shot. And I'm not talking about being able to do the math: "Oh, that was his wife!" Teri says, "There's nothing here for you, Jack," and she's right. His whole life now is just waiting to be buried next to his wife.

I just have to point this out. Teri is listed in the credits as "Jack's Secretary" even though she has a name; although, what should we expect from a movie that has a character called "Kathy the Drowned Wife?" There are maybe twelve speaking parts in this movie, and the script's written so the writers won't get confused? What?

"Look. I made a real mess outta things." This movie is so cliche in such rewarding ways. Also: you would never guess she's British.

Oh, Jack, sweetie. Ten thousand dollars is way, way below market value for offing someone, even pretend offing them. Oh, he's so pretty. And so stupid.

It's weird to go from watching Real Genius with Chris Knight's negative sideburns to Kill Me Again with Jack Andrews' Elvis sideburns.

Hey, while we're on Real Genius: I am delighted to see Val hanging out with Jon Gries again! I think they work really well off one another. Plus, when the story slows down, I can pretend that this is Real Genius II and Chris got kicked out of his cushy corporate job for chasing the wrong skirt, or blowing something up, so he decides out of the blue, "Hey! I'll be a PI! That'll be fun!" and Lazlo comes along to make sure he doesn't get into too much trouble, which of course he does.

. . . I have an overactive imagination, okay? It's one of the things you love about me.

"What's the worst that could happen?" OMIGOD POOR LAZLO! I'm going to cry already, twenty minutes in. I know too much.

Where's a piano repairman going to get a pint of blood?

BELT BUCKLE. In his first scene, Jack's finger is broken by some loan sharks. For the rest of the movie, it's bandaged. For this reason, it's like Val's hand is highlighted or something, and so I find my eye constantly drawn to it; my eyes spend half the movie below Val Kilmer's waist, and not even for the usual reasons.

How far had push-up bra technology advanced in the late 80's?

If they cropped this movie down to just the scene where he's staging her murder, this would be a pretty decent porn. I'm serious. Hot. Really, really hot.

Whoa whoa whoa whoa. I did not notice this the first time I saw the movie, but after she sets the plant glass of vodka on the bedside table -- Jack is still talking to her; they're still acting out the staged murder; he's looking right at her -- she takes her panties off. Holy crap.

Normally I find premature ejaculation jokes puerile and just unclever, but this one, with the blood spilling, is actually well-timed and kind of cute.

Oh, it looks like she's wearing a couple bras. That answers that question.

Aw, he gets his hopes all up. "And you thought you'd made a friend."

That's really good, the positioning of his hand with the wedding ring.

Val and Jon Gries relate to each other physically really well.

Alan: "You know this used to be sacred Indian land? They say there're ghosts."

Both times they stage Fay's murder, they do it on Indian land. What should I take from that, except that I want to watch Thunderheart again? (Okay, when I was doing Serious Analysis of Film Noir -- that's at the very end of this review -- I think I may have figured it out. But still; it took too much thought.)

Look at those helpful hotel and airport clerks, giving away all that personal information. The 80's were a gentler time.

Oh, sweetie. Jack, you don't live in your office, do you?

LOL 80's police. Look at them roughing up a suspect, and bringing an eyewitness face to face with a suspected murderer.

Why do the loan sharks care if Jack leaves town? He's square with the house now.

We already know how Vince knew where Fay was; we already know how he knew that Jack might know where she was. We do not need to be shown that Vince got Jack's address from the phone book, particularly as we have already been shown that Jack is not only listed, but the very first PI in the book. Too much exposition! Too little editing!

LOL, in the olden days when you had to call the bank for your account balance. An ex-boyfriend of my sister's actually made that same mistake; they told him his balance was "three oh two," and he thought he had three hundred dollars in the bank and went and spent a bunch of money.

Oh, poor Jack and his office furniture are having a really hard week.

I like that Jack beats Vince up a little once he's got him trapped. It's certainly not valiant, but it's really true to life.

First Jack's sleeping in his office; now he's sleeping in his car. He's really moving up in the world.

Who throws out cereal and kitchen cleaners at a highway rest stop?

Why does that guy identify Jack as "the guy who shot Marty?" Jack doesn't look anything like Vince. And if he was just going to automatically assume that Jack was Vince, why did they bother setting up the whole calling the gangsters to tell them Jack has some of their money thing? Too little editing!

Holy crap, he is so pretty.

But so stupid! He knows she's lying to him. He knows she'd sell him out in a heartbeat. She fucks up his life so bad! I would have turned myself into the police about a dozen times before the end of this movie. "Arrest me, whatever, just get me away from this bitch!"

"If you're straight with me, maybe we could help each other." The first time I saw this, I thought he said, "If you're straight with me, maybe we could have each other." I like that better. I'll just be over here, fancying up the script . . .

I like the repetition of the "guess we won't be going to _______," in theory. As it's used, it isn't enough to explain or justify Fay's behavior, and the situations are markedly different. Vince would kill her for a nickel, and Jack risks everything he has, against his own best judgment, to help her. It's not fair, even as a literary device.

Could they make a decision, please, on what color her hair currently is? Too little editing!

Val Kilmer: sexy mountain man.

"We can die together." This time, like he couldn't with his wife. Oh, that seals it. Stupid, stupid man.

What happens to Alan is monstrously unfair, but I really like this little cutaway to him at the piano. Look, ma! I'm a real character!

"What about your place . . . ? You've been evicted." So Jack does have a place! Why the hell doesn't he ever sleep there?

"Yes, this is the operator."
"Operator! Look--"

TOO LITTLE EDITING

Let me just make sure to buy all my feigning-a-murder supplies at the same time, at the same place.

The moving roadblocks thing was actually really smart, and his leaving it in favor of Fay was actually really smart (as a writing thing; obviously, for Jack personally I think it was THE STUPIDEST THING THAT EVER STUPIDED). You know what would have been smarter? Using that at the end of the movie, since you did go through the trouble of setting it up, and all.

Yes, I did cap this just because it was so reminiscent of his I'm going to get what I want expression in Thunderheart.

Jesus, there is way too much of the preplanning shown. This movie is an hour and a half long; if it had been edited properly, it'd probably be about fifty minutes. Oy.

Vince puts a gun to Jack's head.

VINCE: You might live through the rest of this day if you tell me where my money is.
FAY: Jack, he's crazy! He'll kill you.

YA THINK? All together, now: TOO LITTLE EDITING!

The barrel of the gun leaves an impression in Jack's forehead. Good detail.

He's still just waiting to be buried. There's no change.

Yes, I did just cap this because it reminded me of his, bitch please, FBI don't play that shit look from Thunderheart.

Vince tells Jack to get on his feet . . . and then knocks him to the ground before he can stand up. What?

God, he's so stupid.

Please explain why we went through the unedited agony of detailing our escape route if we're not going to use it when we escape.

Who picks Michael Madsen over Val Kilmer? Really? Who does that? It's like: Rowan Atkinson, or David Boreanaz? Hmm, this is a hard one . . . Given a choice between 1989 Michael Madsen and 2010 Val Kilmer, I still pick Val Kilmer. I don't even have to think about it.

Bullets only follow a straight trajectory into the water to about an inch. Did you see that thing go whizzing by him, feet down?

Aw, he left them some Spam. That was nice of him.

Okay, girls just look hot doing that.

So I like to see him hurt. That's weird, isn't it?

That ending was in no way gratuitous. "Should they get arrested?" "Nah. Let's BLOW THEM THE FUCK UP." (Now the Spam is ready to eat, at least.)

He's in a towel again, having been pulled out of the water. Having been pulled out of the water, hurt, and losing his woman. We are exactly where we began. NOTHING CHANGED. This is terrible. Unless the moral of the story is, "Jack Andrews, please stop dating, because apparently having sex with you kills people," I am fucking disappointed by this ending.

Oh! Oh. And now that Jack has effectively faked his own death, he cannot have the thing he lives for: to be buried next to his wife. I just hope they don't stick Vince in the ground in his place.

Okay, let's regroup. There is no character change, and this movie does not speak thematically to larger issues, so we can conclude that it has no literary value. Let's look at its genre value. Film noir is difficult to define even among industry professionals, but let's see what we can come up on, loosely.

• Compelling mystery. Sure, the mystery is compellling. And it's fairly novel.
• Archetypal characters. Kill Me Again is rich in typical noir archetypes: the weary private investigator, the femme fatale, the unhinged con man.
• Scenes are lit for night. This is a yes, too. Even the daylight scenes tend to be shot pretty dark, and lit uniformly; character and ground tend not to be differentiated with light. (It may not be evident in these caps; I relit everything per my own aesthetic, which tends to have higher contrast than most movies.)
• Compositional tension is preferred to physical action. While there is action, a lot of screentime is devoted to a character (usually Jack) looking into the distance with great angst. Yes.
• A Freudian attachment to water. Ho boy, that's a win. Jack's wife dies in a car accident in which the car is driven into a body of water; she drowns. When Jack needs to dispose of Fay's car, he puts the car in a lake. When he's shot, and trying to escape being shot again, Jack jumps from a great height . . . into a body of water, where he has to wait, submerged, watching the bullets whiz by him.
• Romantic narration. When we talk about romantic narration, we are not talking about a love story; we are talking about Romanticism. Romanticism is a literary movement that began in the 18th century, and is characterized by an almost fearful reverence of nature (in noir, it's usually going to be water, as detailed above), an evocation of the past, a heroic isolation of the protagonist, and a relationship to or mindfulness of the occult and/or human psychology. Kill Me Again is narrated romantically. We have the water, and the strange attachment to sacred Indian land (both "murders" are commited on Indian land, and Alan talks about the land as being sacred, and there being ghosts there). And we have Jack and Fay having sex with the storm raining down on them; the feral power of nature as a sexy beast is a big thing in Romanticism, too. Past is very present in this film; Jack's whole life is centered around his wife's death. The hero is isolated physically -- his entire world is two people -- but more importantly, psychologically. For the occult, let's go back to the sacred Indian land, and Alan's ghosts.
• A complex chronological order. Noir films use complex chronologies to reinforce the feelings of hopelessness and having lost time. These films are very concerned with the past. Kill Me Again's chronology is not too difficult, but it is dependent upon flashbacks, so we'll give Kill Me Again complex chronology.

So Kill Me Again fits the criteria of a noir film, and, if we consider it as operating within the boundaries of these criteria, I think it's not overly novel, but it's pretty decently constructed. Verdict: not too bad.

Comments

[carlyinrome.livejournal.com]

My grandfather has one of those plots, too, but it's not like his whole life is geared towards getting there.

I agree. Having read The American Way of Death, I'm more afraid of what horrible things are going to happen to my body after I die than I actually am of death. (Okay, part of that's the book; part of that's probably the Crazy.)

Omigod, he breaks my heart!

I am polishing the caps for my The Island of Dr. Moreau post. It was not good, Holly, but holy God he is so, so beautiful.

*huggggggggggs* Hope you're doing well, working girl!

[carlyinrome.livejournal.com]

Ooooooooooooookay. Island of Dr. Moreau thing is here; I've decided to be nice to the lame part of my flist and start posting Kilmer stuff at valkilmersexgod instead. And I'm sorry to keep jumping all over you but I'm manic and having no luck reining myself in.

WOOT