When I agreed to review Killers this week , this is a sample of some the emails I got from my fellow reviewers:
“Omg, Dean, you are some kind of saint! :D” and “Dean is out of his fucking mind.”
When I agreed to review Killers this week , this is a sample of some the emails I got from my fellow reviewers:
“Omg, Dean, you are some kind of saint! :D” and “Dean is out of his fucking mind.”
I should have listened to them. And in the Buddhists tradition of not saying anything unless it improves upon the silence I have this to say about the movie…
The lighting was pretty good. I’m talking to you Greg Stills – lighting technician!
Sadly, I must go on.
This movie is beyond bad, it is completely lacking in craft whatsoever. It is like no one anywhere on the this thing has any skill or talent at all. The footage in Nice, France looks good and this is the only part that looked like a real movie. From then on, everyone involved didn’t phone it in, they tweeted it in.
The acting choices were bland. Camera work—pedestrian. Directing was dull. It was like the first draft of the script was cast with whomever was free that week and each scene was shot in no more than one take.
However, I am still of the belief that no one goes out to make a bad movie. That every person involved in any project worked as hard as they could to push the envelope of their talent to deliver the best they had to offer, in whatever their medium. And when a movie sucks, it is a testament to how tricky it is making feature films.
But one of two things may be happening here:
ONE: we have gotten to a point where we are so cynical that when faced with a bad script, dailies, or rough edit, not ONE person stopped everyone and said “hang on, this is complete shit! Let’s gather together and hammer out script changes, order re-shoots, find comedy punch-up people, bring in acting coaches, and do SOMETHING to save this!!” Instead this was just a paycheck for everyone, and this stinkeroo is foisted upon us. Again, I am talking to you, Greg Stills – lighting Technician.
TWO: This is maybe a symptom of a larger problem here in Hollywood. That even the bean counters have left the asylum leaving only the 20-year-old mail room boys to run the shop, so that no one can write a script, can read a script , or know a bad script from good. There is no one left to say this sucks.. The scarier thought is that this WAS everyone trying to do their best and suddenly even the most by-the-numbers romantic comedy doesn’t even resemble a movie anymore. Anyone over forty who had experience to save this has long since gone on to investment finance.
Now for full on spoiler alert (like you’ll ever see this thing):
At the end, the time has past in a dark theatre with questions about character motivation, relationship arcs, and the mind boggling fact that the discovery that he is a spy, the whole neighborhood is trying to kill him, his father-in-law (Tom Selleck) is a alcoholic-enabling counter spy, and that the wife is pregnant happens all in ONE NIGHT! It becomes pointless to discuss this because it is obvious that no one behind the camera asked these questions. At the end, the writers are even recycling Tom Selleck mustache jokes from Friends !
There is so many talented people in this town, how this movie makes it to a screen and that marketing teams and press junkets deploy over this STINKER staggers the mind.
Here is the lesson for a creatively tone deaf Hollywood: If your script does not improve upon the silence, then don’t make it.
—Dean Haglund, who somehow tricked himself into seeing this movie.
