DVD & Blu-ray Review (September 2009)
A Recent review from filmstar highlights the great extras included on the DVD release. Click here for the full details.
Review by Filmstar Magazine (August 2009)
A Recent review from filmstar magazine gave Kill Kill Faster Faster 3 and a half stars. Click here for the full details.
Review by Tom Leins (Disappearheremag.com 23/07/09)
Inspired by Joel Rose’s edgy, uncompromising cult novel, Kill Kill Faster Faster (Kaleidoscope) is a bleak, stylish drama about Joey One-Way, a tormented convict-turned-literary-sensation whose tentative post-prison existence is thrown into chaos when he falls for the sultry wife of his new movie producer employer. First time director Gareth Maxwell Roberts tweaks the story into a stark, minimalist neo-noir, and this aesthetic suits the bleak subject matter perfectly. The slick editing artfully disguises the film’s modest budget, and the (relatively) obscure cast bring the story vividly to life. Newcomers may wonder what all of the fuss is about, but fans of the book will be thrilled by this faithfully rendered adaptation. Cool and twisted, with enough jolts of nastiness to keep you squirming. Interesting stuff.‘To make that movie, first throw yourself off the cliff…’
Article by Tessa Jo Williams in ‘aW/25’ artwork Special Celebratory Issue
For an independent director, getting your first feature off the ground is a bit like giving birth to sextuplets. It doesn’t happen often and it takes a lot out of you. As first time feature director, Gareth Maxwell Roberts explained of his film Kill Kill Faster Faster ‘When you’re making a film you really have to throw yourself over the cliff. For a long time I was struggling between making commercials and music videos and working on the film in my spare time. But film making is not something you can do half heartedly or part time, you really have to give it your all’. It did indeed cost him a lot of time, effort and money to get his film made, ten years in all and it was a project beset by problems from the start. However, the more obstacles that came his way the more determined he became to get it finished. From the budget falling through at the last minute, leading to legal wranglings it was never going to be an easy ride.
But it was Gareth’s relentless pursuit of the author, Joel Rose, that got the film made in the first place. As he was boarding a flight to Miami to shoot a commercial, Gareth went to the bookstall and the title Kill Kill Faster caught his eye. He picked it up and after a few lines he was completely hooked. ‘I badgered the publisher to give me his agent’s number. I called and called so many times and left her a lot of messages, I became a bit of a stalker really’. At the time he got in touch, Joel Rose was on a book tour with Irvine Welsh in the UK, and when he spoke to Welsh about it he was advised by him to go with an independent.
The film is described as a film noir, and it does definitely dwell on the dark side. It shows Joe, the lead character’s, battles with drug addiction and dependency on sex as a means of expression. The film uses a lot of edgy dialogue and is not afraid to look racial and sexual stereotypes in the face. There is a mountain of explicit sexual scenes, which were, Roberts says, integral to the film. ‘It is an essential part of the character of Joe, it is his way of expressing himself’. Asked if he was worried about other peoples’ attitudes to some of the sexual scenes, he kind of nods and says: ‘Well, maybe my Mum, that was the only person I was really worried about what she would think!’ he jokes.
Roberts was intrigued to meet Joel Rose for the first time. ‘I was rather nervous of speaking to him at first, as it’s a very dark book, and I wondered what sort of person would write this, but he is a very gentle person’. They have since become great friends and Rose was an executive producer on the film.
‘I think with that book he was working out a lot of his internal anger. I really identified with the lead character, I felt I shared a lot with him, battling with addiction, having a volatile personality, explosions of anger, feelings of regret and a kind of desire to re-address issues, all features of Joe.’ He is clearly highly aware and sensitive to the problems facing people with addiction problems. ‘There are very few heroes and villains in life and actually most people exist on a sliding scale somewhere in between. Everyone has positive and negative elements. It really depends on how each person is perceived. At what point in one’s life you find that person and from what angle you’re looking at that person. Also it’s easy in life to describe people as monsters and explain them away as being so different from you when actually in reality with characters like Joe, one tends to have more in common with these people that you’d like to admit. This is what really intrigues me about this story’.
It is not surprising that already the film has garnered Best International Film at this years London Independent Film Festival. It is a film that has not been afraid to step on to the dark side and create an explosive creative outpost in the process. It’s certainly one to look out for.
Review by Rich Cline ‘Shadows on the Wall’
Director-cowriter Roberts creates an intriguingly abrasive tone, with stark visuals that rely heavily on shadows, sweat and blood. These characters are mistrusting, fearful and desperate, and in fine noir tradition they're often their own worst enemies. Most of them only know how to communicate through the language of sex, complete with innuendo, bravado, illicit encounters and jealous confrontations. The sex scenes are extremely bold, and demonstrate a willingness among the cast to literally bare their souls on camera. Bellows holds the film together with a performance that's both emotional and physical. We're never quite sure about him, and the mystery holds our interest. Even through he acts like a tough guy, he seems more like a harmless barking puppy. His scenes with Ray and Delain are intriguing and electric, mainly because they're so out of balance. Meanwhile, Morales is all macho bluster that we hope will develop into something (it doesn't), and Parkes is very good in an under-defined role. But this is an auspicious feature debut for Roberts, showing a sure grip on tone and an interest in stories from the fringe. The jumbled editing, with flickers of the past and future, always leaves us guessing where the plot is headed. And the tight focus on the characters and their inner lives is rare for a low-key thriller like this.
Review in ‘The Poison Sponge’
F*ck. I do try to avoid expletives, but man, this film has hit me pretty hard. It’s probably the most depressing film this side of Requiem for a Dream, and I’m still trying to figure out whether that is a recommendation or a warning. This is film noir at its bleakest, its most depressing, and its most suicidal. I’ve had to put on Tom Waits to even get in the mood for this. It’s the only thing in my music library even approaching the desolation of this film, and it’s really not cutting it. There’s certain tracks featured in the film itself that are perfect, and tomorrow I’m going to track down the OST if I can, because it’s damn good. I know it’s an odd way to start one of these quasi-reviews, but it’s important to set the mood, just as it is in the film. Even the way it’s shot is startling. All the colour is drained from the shots, and I recall one scene early on when the protagonist Joe One-way (Gil Bellows) is in some dive bar and a man is playing the piano. Shafts of light spatter over the pianist as tendrils of smoke coil around him. It’s cliche, but the film is so saturated with film noir cliche that you don’t even notice. While listening to the equally bleak narration, I was constantly reminded of Max Payne, the excellent game about a cop who’s family is killed by drug addicts, causing him to go on a self destructive path in an attempt at redemption. Joe’s family is destroyed by a drug addict, just in this case, the drug addict was him. The film is about a broken man. Joe is broken before we meet him, and he’s entirely broken the whole way through the film. Everything he cares about he has sabotaged, and anything he used to care about means nothing to him now. We meet him as he is released from jail, following some movie executive reading a play he wrote about his time in prison while incarcerated picking it up to make a feature out of. There’s a moment halfway through where he’s railing against having to rewrite scenes, claiming he has to relive each of them in his mind, and he says ‘I’m tired of feeling sorrowful, because I’m tired of saying sorry.’ You get the impression that he would welcome suicide, something that he seems to constantly contemplate. Of course, with a tittle like ‘Kill Kill Faster Faster’ (instantly conjuring up the excellent ‘Kiss Kiss Bang Bang’, of which this film shares little), there has to be some heartache, and that comes in the form of Fleur (Lisa Ray). She’s married to Mark (Esai Morales), the executive, and within the first half hour Joe is having an affair with her. It’s all so sickeningly cyclical that the final few scenes become apparent early on. Instead of ruining the film they only make the feeling of utter pity and depression all that more tangible. The film is very visceral, with a multitude of very pornographic and violent scenes. It’s not for the faint of heart. I’m not even sure I would recommend it. It’s very, very good, but only in so much that it makes you feel like crap. I guess that’s a good thing every once in a while.
Review in 'Erotic Review'
Dramatic, intelligent and very hot sex action, hugely ambitious for an independent film, Killl Kill Faster Faster is a dark, erotic love story, a contemporary film noir. Sex is the hinge, the highlight, the horror and the horrendous conflict of the story and it is acted out with jaw-dropping tension and compulsion.
