KILLER
US, 1994, 93 minutes, Colour.
Anthony La Paglia, Mimi Rogers, Matt Craven, Peter Boyle.
Directed by Mark Malone.
The Killer is a film noir, focusing on a hitman played by Anthony La Paglia. We see him at work, successfully as well as unsuccessfully. In order to keep his status, before he retires, he takes a job where he is assigned to kill Mimi Rodgers. As they interact, he realises that she ultimately wants to die, has some guilt for her role in a fraud, but also wants to change him, perhaps to make him feel guilty, perhaps to offer him some redemption. The film is well acted with Peter Boyle as the hitman’s friend.
1. An interesting psychological study of a hitman? Of the victim? Of their interactions? Responsibility, guilt, possibilities of redemption?
2. The city atmosphere, the darkness, the night? The streets, the apartment? The focus on interiors and darkness? Musical score?
3. The title and its blunt focus on Mick? The role of hit men in society? Those that employ them? Their victims? The psychological state of the killers, that they can do this work, that they can be bought, that they can lack compunction?
4. The portrait of Mick, the initial mistake, finishing off the victim? His relationship with George? The bosses, the encounter with Laura, his sexual adequacy or inadequacy and its relationship to Mick's violence? Archie?
5. The job, Fiona, the hotel room? Going out? The intention to kill Fiona, finding the right opportunity? The effect on him, her wiles, her guilt, her death wish? The discussions with Archie and George? The culmination? The after-effect?
6. Fiona, what she had done, her knowledge of this, in the hotel room, knowing she was a victim? The femme fatale style, her wiles with Mick? Her own character, the sexual encounter? The build-up to the killing, her death?
7. George, his relationship with Mick, mentor, arrangements? In the streets, the shootings?
8. A more serious, perhaps over-serious, look at the gangster world, gangland killers? Their behaviour, their psychology, their consciences?
