Kill 'Em All (2012)

Today on Movie Russian Roulette, Alex watches a movie with a title too badass for this world.

sadly not from the director of Bangcock Andrenaline

Overview: A group of assassins wake up after successful hits in the "Killing Chamber," where a voice on a speaker tells them they must fight to the death in a martial arts tournament to win their freedom. Many fight scenes ensue.


The assassins are a varied lot, but by and large they're based on recognizable archetypes: there's the Shaolin monk guy, the femme fatale, the brash American who's good with explosives, the angry Cockney brawler, etc. After a few fights, the main character Som (the chick about to kill some guy on the movie poster) manages to lead a prison break for all the remaining assassins, and the movie shifts into a revenge plot as the group attempts to escape the shadowy gamemaster's traps, minions, and douchebaggery. A few scenes are also devoted to the killers trying to figure out why they were brought here, but as usual, this is never really explained.

More fights happen, the director gets to pretend he has a clever tweest, and then the movie just kind of ends. More on that in a moment.

Notable moments/quotes:
Fat guy who's being targeted by one of the assassins: "I'm sure this can be settled peacefully." He then pushes his assistant into the assassin and sprints away.

I watched this movie with subtitles on, as I often do to help make up for any shitty audio quality resulting from poor actors/bad equipment. For some reason, every time martial arts were happening and someone was hit, (flesh packing) was what they picked to title it. It became like a meta running joke, and I laughed more and more as it kept happening every single time there was a fight scene (and this movie is about 80% fight scenes).

I kept picturing this

One of the assassins is named Mickey, and he's a 17-year-old kid who has no conscience. The actor playing him, Rashid Phoenix, does a phenomenal job portraying this innocent bloodlust by having a happy-go-lucky smile on his face and a wide-eyed look every time he's on camera, no matter if they're eating or trying to kill each other. It's a very creepy effect, and although it sounds like it might get old fast, this technique only became more effective with repeated exposure. His performance in this movie alone made me long to see more of his work, but unfortunately he seems to almost exclusively work as a stuntman. It's a shame; the guy has some real skill. Maybe in the future he can do more acting. After all, other action movie stars have shown we love guys who do their own stunts.

The bad guy, in what was probably meant as a clever title drop: "Ninjas! Kill them all!"

American explosives guy, upon being told he's to fight in a tournament of assassins to the death: "Sounds like a really, really good video game."

Bad guy whose name is never stated: "I'm goan'a shoot all you bitches in the face!"

Same bad guy: "You're just parasites compared to us! And it's time to do some delousing!"
American Badass: "Delousing huh? I dunno what that means, but... delouse this!" He then throws an improvised Molotov cocktail which detonates in a fakey explosion fifteen feet from anyone, but kills at least 12 masked minions who laid in wait.

Asian Kingpin: "Your kind is like a cancer, that must be wiped out like a disease."

Som: "You expect me to join you?"
Asian Dr. Evil: "No, Som, I expect you... to die."

damn kids think they can pay homage to a classic

My thoughts: I'm pretty sure the film's "creative" minds wanted this movie to play out as a cross between Saw and Mortal Kombat, and on a basic level, they succeeded. The movie's premise is simple and direct, and at first I was impressed by the purity of purpose they seemed to have. "It's a movie called Kill Em All. They've gathered a bunch of killers, who have no choice but to kill all the rest to escape. If this is just a series of fight scenes, I might actually like this movie," I found myself thinking.

And to be fair, the movie is as previously mentioned around 80% fight scenes with pretty good choreography. They mostly use martial arts, but a few times they get creative with the weapons; in one particularly brutal scene, Som is getting her ass handed to her by a superior martial artist, so she dual-wields cinder blocks and proceeds to beat the hell out of him. I was quite pleased with the movie's fight scenes, and I think they realized this was their strength. (Some of the fights actually started to remind me of my favorite Chuck Norris B-movie, Silent Rage, which I actually recommend for legitimate enjoyment.) In fact, the first 15 minutes or so is just action, showing each assassin taking down a target with little to no dialogue or exposition. It made for a very confusing, yet exciting experience. Even as I worried about the lack of plot, the mystery deepened. Who were these people? How are all these hits connected? Will I get to see the hot Asian chick get her top ripped off in a fight? Sadly, the movie's answers to all these questions are disappointing at best.

Particularly to the last question

This movie did a decent job at keeping me fooled into thinking it could be a good movie until it made one fatal mistake: it let the actors talk. All the dialogue in this turkey is phoned-in at best and clunky at worst. While I don't expect every action movie to have a top-notch plot (worn down by years and years of shitty movies, probably), what this movie fails to understand is that action isn't effective in an empty void. If we care about the characters, we want to see them succeed. If we see the bad guy is really evil, we want the catharsis of seeing him brought to justice through hot-blooded combat. This is really just extremely basic storytelling, and on the most basic level this movie completely fails in this regard to evoke even the baseline emotional responses expected from one of the most simple stories that it's possible to tell. All the protagonists are assassins with virtually no redeeming features, and the movie doesn't establish personalities for them much beyond basic stereotypes and fighting styles. So, when two characters fight, the action may be exciting, but the emotion isn't there. When the fight's over, our thought isn't "Alright, the hot Asian chick won!" it's more along the lines of "Oh, gods damn it, they're going to talk some more" because of the expectations the movie has set up. Dialogue is minimal, but not in a good, Drive sort of way; it's more like an arcade fighting game, just barely being there to sort of justify why fights are happening.

Ironically, the movie itself invites this comparison to a shitty fighting game. When an assassin wins a match, their captor allows them into the "Weapon Chamber" where he or she is allowed to pick one weapon to use in future matches. The American assassin mentions on multiple occasions how their situation is like a video game. The head bad guy turns out to be really good at fighting and must be defeated in a fight where the heroes are clearly outmatched. Hell, I think the Street Fighter movie had a better plot than this.

haha no not that street fighter movie you're adorable

Finally, after the movie has laid out its lame twist of "One of them was out for revenge! She knew how to escape the whole time!" and the bad guy has been defeated, the movie ends with her just walking out of the building. To me, this was the director saying, "Nope, fuck off, we're out of fight scenes. Go away," as there's no real resolution there. The reason why these assassins were specifically kidnapped or their connection was never revealed. The villain's motivation was never established. We never really learned much of anything about any of the characters. The crime organization/assassin's guild (never really made clear) introduced suddenly in the last half-hour or so never did anything or had any goal revealed. If you wanted resolution beyond "they punched the bad guy and he fell down" you'll just be left feeling disappointed. The whole thing feels like a toddler smashing action figures together, then getting bored and leaving his broken toys there when something else shiny catches his attention. While the effort might be enjoyable to watch, no one should have any expectations beyond that or disappointment will follow.

I give this movie a Nic Cage Mentors a Troubled Inner-City Youth out of five. Validate my existence on Facebook!