Road Kill (1999) Reviews

• Jennifer Rubin's Role

  hroeder2004-09-16

  Jennifer Rubin is one of the actresses everyone has seen. In this she shows she can really act. The plot is realatively simple: a failing film student must make one good film to graduate. He meets his next door neighbor who turns out to be a hit woman. (Rubin) Hey, here's an idea: let's make a documentary of your next hit. And that's what they set out to do. Film her next "road" "kill". This is not a trashy film. It's well done. Entertaining. Often funny. A coming of age in extreme circumstances film. Consider that this independent film, with a too cute title, ends up with a rating above 7.0 on IMDb. If you can find the DVD it's well worth your invested time. And Jennifer can act!

• Thoroughly enjoyable road movie, with strong performances and promising script.

  war-21999-09-22

  Checked this one out at the Santa Barbara film festival. It's a shame the release wasn't wider, there are definite cult possibilities. Impressive performance from "Silver Spoons" alum Billy Jayne. Perhaps a little too "pretentious student film" but had a lot of laughs and an unexpected touch to the end of the film.

• Unique, often hilarious, and sometimes pretty dark indie

  PeachHamBeach2005-02-06

  I bought a copy of ROAD KILL from Blockbuster the day it came out in Sept. of 2001, and when I watched it the other day, I was reminded of just how fun a film it is. It's about a film student named Alex (Erik Palladino) who ignores his classmates' "seriofilms" featuring talking genitalia, and perks up only when his Kung Fu film is being shown. Needless to say, his teacher isn't too impressed with Alex's work, so he gives him an ultimatum: Do a new film that is unique and intelligent, or flunk the course. Alex is stressed out not only by his instructor, but by a mobster he got his "student loan" from, and his wackily menacing henchman who likes to play with knives. One of the funniest characters is Lars (Billy Jayne) a bleach blonde art student who throws tantrums on a regular basis. The complaints about dairy foods and the paranoia about carbon monoxide were really hilarious. The guys have a mysterious neighbor named Blue (Jennifer Rubin) and when they find out that she is a contract killer who is getting ready to change careers, they beg her to take them along on the road to her next and last assignment. Most of the film is quite funny and lighthearted but it takes a dark turn about 80 minutes in. To me, there isn't an excessive amount of violence, and anyway, the person Blue was violent with deserved to be punished. Overall, ROAD KILL is a unique indie film, with great performances. I even liked the music, especially the song in the beginning. Is this the Kate Donnellon I've heard so much about??? I'd sure like to see Matthew Leutwyler's second film THIS SPACE BETWEEN US (hint, hint) and I'm looking ahead also to DEAD AND BREAKFAST. He's a talented director. There's really nothing bad I could say about ROAD KILL. I'd give it an A.

• A truly wonderful film.

  sling-32003-01-09

  reviewed by Bryan McFadden The true strength of this film lies in its clearly defined and original characters. The film has a clear sense of direction and the motivaltional complexity of Blue's character is an asset rather than a liability. Jennifer Rubin gives a powerful performance as Blue, a killer who does not take herself too seriously, but suffers from deep childhood trauma. Rubin plays the character with a careful balance between passionate intensity and lighthearted humanity. As a result, Blue is an easily believable character who elicts the sympathy and respect of the audience. This film is rich with entertaining allusion, notably the refence to the nose bandage in Chinatown. A truly wonderful film.

• Strangely likable...

  Siegfried_Eracktor2012-10-21

  Alex, an unsuccessful film student, sees the chance of his life when he learns that Blue, the attractive woman who moves next door, is a professional contract killer. He has the idea of making a documentary on Blue and her professional occupation and persuades her to take him and his neurotic room mate/sound assistant Lars on a road trip across the country to Miami, where she has to eliminate her last target. There are quite a few things that are wrong with Road Kill. First of all, you see the budgetary constraints on every corner - boring locations, boring and sometimes quite poor editing, horrendous sound - during the numerous car scenes, the sound of the road is sometimes actually louder than the voices of the actors. There is only one real action scene, and it's staged pretty poorly. But the biggest flaw of the movie is how extremely unrealistic it is. Sure, I shouldn't have high expectations in that department from a low budget movie about a hit woman and a film buff, and I don't. But the amount of the suspension of disbelief demanded by Road Kill is too great even for a tolerant film viewer like me. So this cold blooded professional assassin is so professional that she tells a complete stranger everything about her job after a couple of beers? And then, seemingly out of utter boredom, says yes when he wants to film her on her way to her next target AND actually killing the guy? She even buys extra bulletproof vests for Alex and Lars! What's in it for her? How does she expect to be made unrecognizable in Alex's cheap, low budget documentary, when she is in every frame of it, speaking about pretty much everything from her life? What would her employers think about that? And how can Alex release his documentary without being confronted with the accusation of being an accessory to several murders? The other problem is that Blue's character itself is completely unbelievable. I just didn't buy, even for a second, that she is a ruthless, cold blooded assassin. That's not even Jennifer Rubin's fault, really - she obviously had to fight with her underwritten character, but I actually really liked her performance. Overall, the actors' performances is where the movie actually redeems, at least partially, some of it's faults. I was pleasantly surprised by Eric Palladino and Billy Jane as Alex and Lars respectively, because, while playing utter cliché characters, they managed to make me care for them and were never annoying (which is often a problem with low budget movies about some students/geeks/losers). As mentioned before, this movie doesn't have many action scenes, and the one that is there isn't very impressive. But it compensates with a couple of really memorable scenes that are full with pretty dark humor - the best example is the extended bar scene, where the barkeeper serves tequila with torn off human toes in it. The short appearances of Tony Denison are also very entertaining. And of course there is the scene, where Alex runs out of film just in the exact moment of culmination of his documentary - Blue killing her target - so he frantically stages the murder with the already dead man. This is also the point where the movie comes the nearest to being a satire in the vein of such films as "Man Bites Dog" (which has a similar story), certainly never being nearly as intense. One can't help but think that there is a lot of missed potential here, because the question of Alex's implicit involvement in Blue's murders just through his presence and his filming is only scratched at on the surface. Thus, this movie won't leave you thinking about it for days, it won't shock you as "Man Bites Dog" may. But despite all its numerous flaws, Road Kill manages with the help of nice acting performances and some memorable scenes to be quite entertaining and... strangely likable.