Kiss or Kill (1997, R)

Rated R for violence, profanity, and sexuality

Written and Directed by Bill Bennett (Two if by Sea)

Starring Frances O'Conner (Love and other Catastrophes) and Matt Day (Love and other Catastrophes)

I could write this review with my eyes closed. If it weren't for all the typos you would see, that'd actually be a good idea. What I can tell you is that, for each of the four times I have seen this film, it has gotten better and better.

At first, I rented it on the basis of wonderful PR: a provocative back and front cover of the video. The second and third time, I rented it because I had previously enjoyed it. This final time, I taped it off of HBO at 1:10 in the morning... I wanted it that much.

Kiss or Kill, winner of the Australian Best Picture, Director, Actor, and Actress awards in 1997, in the story of Niki and Al, a pair of thieves marking married men, having Niki seduce them and drug them, and then robbing them as a pair. Niki is the victim of a childhood memory of her mother being burnt to death in front of her eyes when she was six. Al is the disowned son of a Gold Coast millionaire. Both lives equally tragic, they survive with each other.

When one of their marks dies of an overdoes, they set themselves to run for Perth, but not before finding a suitcase with a pornographic video in it. This video implicates Zipper Doyle in a child porn ring, and, somehow, has a link into Niki's past. Running for Perth, whoever they meet starts dying, and they are left with only one option: distrust each other.

As B-grade of a road movie as this may sound, it is the creme de la creme. Kiss or Kill's characters are fully developed, it's script tainted with a dark humor and gifted with a sublime mystery, and it's directing a steel machine. Kudos go out to Henry Dagnar, the editor, who does the most innovative technique in years: cutting up each continuous shot to give the viewer a "hurried" feeling.

Niki and Al, on the run from the police, are set into a philosophical examination of lies and truth. As they are forced to mistrust each other, they are forced to re-evaluate their love for one another and what they thought they knew. Rather than stage this examination in a quiet suburban town, as the independent masterpiece Sex, Lies, and Videotape did, Kiss or Kill uses the mystery of the murders that surround them to propel the story along. Everyone is on the run.

Frances O'Conner and Matt Day, previously seen as friends in Love and Other Catastrophes, are excellent as the couple on the run. Should the movie have been done in America, it very well would have won them an Academy Award. Frances O'Conner projects exactly what she should: an aura of mystery and self-distrust, not to mention a distrust of others, accompanied with a naive intelligence. She seems innocent, but is not. Matt Day shows himself as an angry victim of a father that ignored him. Not as intelligent as Niki, but good at masking it, Matt Day is the more practical of the two.

Also of note are the two policemen on their train, whose names escape me but who deliver perhaps the best scene of lies in recent times. This comes in the form of a breakfast talk about why one of them won't eat bacon, and seems utterly serious until the end.

Told in a detached manner, Bill Bennett was and should be recognized for his brilliance. He uses almost no lighting throughout the film, yet persists in using scenes in darkened rooms in order to heighten the shadows and thus the suspense. Leaving no music in the film whatsoever, he allows us to view this as if it were really happening, instead of as it was just another movie.

Kiss or Kill was a technical and colorful masterpiece, and deserves every bit of praise I or anyone else could give it. Enjoy, people, enjoy.