T&K's XMas (2023) Advent Calendar - Day 22: The Christmas Break

 2023, d. Prarthana Mohan - CTV

The Draw: 
Ireland!

THEIRstory: 
Oh no, a Marvista production. A terrible opening song (I tried to google it and I got no matches but one of the three suggested matches was "Wet Vagina" by Doja Cat at 21%). A snowfall over, I want to say, stock footage of Chicago, but, oh no, it's just a photo of Chicago with a snow globe in front of it. Random pictures of our leads with their families and hobbies and a quick entry into Jack (Justin Long) in a loud red xmas jumper pulling food out of the oven without oven mitts saying he's developed a tolerance from working at a pizza place in high school (like that's a thing). Jack and Caroline (India Mullen) are throwing a holiday party and someone brings their kid (! for shame) and Jack is completely taken with the kid. Caroline looks unimpressed. Post-party, Jack brings up the idea of trying, but Caroline is vying for a VP position, and likes her child-free life, and grew up in a big family and really disliked the chaos..

Cut to Ballyogue Ireland, with Caroline returning home for Christmas, and her family pub, where things seem...different. The pub isn't busy (at 10 am, just two barflies). Is it not the Perfect Small Town she remembers, but Jacks seems to think so. Arriving at home-home, Caroline and Jack greet the family, including one sister (or in-law) with a baby (and Caroline kind of recoils at the site of a baby, again), and another sister (or in-law) with two monstrous scamps who tear out the door the moment it's open like a housecat longing to be out in wild.

Caroline inquires with Mom about the pub's slow patronage, and Mom brings up Cormac O'Leary, Caroline's high school sweetheart, who has opened up a fancy new place in town (obviously competing with Dad's place) and is good looking to a threatening level for Jack (also 'cause it seems Jack is a fair bit older than Caroline and he's maybe a bit insecure about it).

Jack runs into other family out on the football pitch where he learns about Gaelic football from Caroline's niece Saiorse.  Her brother's out on the pitch, but he's not good, but she is but she doesn't feel welcome to play. Traditional gender roles are clearly a thing in PST Ireland. Apparently Caroline's dad and Cormac O'Leary have made a bet on a Christmas Eve Gaelic football match that the losing team of the match will close down their pub. Given that Leary's is already trouncing Reilly's I'm guessing the bet was Caroline's dad's last ditch idea (but nope, it was the brothers. Dad is selling the pub but I guess they don't know that? Why not? Oh, and "closing down the pub" bet is just for Christmas Eve, I guess the busiest pub night in town?).

Caroline talks with the sisters( in-laws?) about families and the foreshadowing of Caroline quitting her job to return to the PST and save her family pub, and start a family is a stomach churning level of upsetting. Jack meanwhile is all about hanging out with the kids, playing, coaching, teaching and learning.  A nighttime talk of kids again doesn't get contentious but it's clear Caroline is uncomfortable with even the idea of kids.

The next morning, Caroline tells the sisters (in-laws?) that she wants to go visit Cormac's pub to "check out the competition" (knowing teasing) and asks them to come. Jack says he'll look after the boys (and their harnesses) and the baby and take them to the Christmas Market. Caroline frets about whether Jack is capable of actually being responsible for the kids. The moment he steps outside the two scamps just bolt again. 

Cormac's pub is packed in the AM. The sisters (in-law?) sing karaoke (Fairytale of New York) while Caroline talks to Cormac. She tries to be resentful of him stealing her dad's business but he clearly has a head for what works and he's dedicated to it. Also, he doesn't want kids or a family. Caroline drops a "Wow, I should have married you." He tells her to stop worrying about what everyone else is doing and decide what she wants. He also drops that they're almost 30. Justin Long is, like, my age, which puts a good 15+ years between Jack and Caroline.  Also, Caroline throws up in the bathroom at Leary's and she's maybe preggos(!). So she pops out to the chemists for a pregnancy test, which of course is when she runs into a nosy neighbour.

Jack feeds the scamps sugar, and has to change a baby, which gives the scamps time to bolt again, all sugared up. So he has to chase them through town, leading to a very awkward run in with Caroline outside the chemists. One of the scamps climbs up to the top of a scissor lift, and Jack has to get him, despite being afraid of heights, so he straps the baby to a fiberglass Santa. Nosy neighbour takes the baby, and Jack, returning to the family is in total shit as all of his "cool uncle" plans blow up in his face and the whole family is cross with him. And of course, that night, when Caroline finds out she's pregnant is when Jack starts doubting whether he wants kids.

The next morning the brothers (in-law?) drag Jack out to the pitch after he convinced Saoirse's awkward brother to quit the team. Jack's just a mess out there, somehow never where you need him to be, but always in the way. Jack takes an elbow on purpose to get out of the match and convince Saoirse's dad to let her play. And of course she makes all the difference.

And suddenly Caroline is doing a 180 and wants to buy Dad's pub and Jack can DJ there, and they can have a family and Jack is just reeling from Caroline's dramatic shift. Caroline is clearly panicking. Caroline has a talk with Dad, and Dad tells her he's not selling her the pub. She's got a life and career elsewhere. Good talk.  

Jack and Caroline finally have a talk and get back on the same page. They tell the family of the baby, and have a rollicking Christmas Eve in an Irish pub. 

The Formulae:
A Christmas market. So much family. Mom always busy in the kitchen. The low-stakes race for the couple to find each other and reconcile. 

Unformulae:
Drinking. Sex jokes. Ireland! And the female lead doesn't give up her life, even though it seems to be going that way. That was a bit of a surprise.

True Calling?
No, not at all. "Christmas Break" usually is a term for the period when the kids are off school, but that's not really the deal here. The double meaning could be "break" as in the couple are "on a break", but that's not it either. So I don't get it.

The Rewind: 
The first 65 seconds of the movie I've already rewound three times, because the pictures they use in the opening montage are so dense with details it's hard to parse it all out, but also because there's a picture of Justin Long in a terrible costume by a banner that reads "LARP" that I just needed to capture.

It unfortunately doesn't come into play at all.

The Regulars:
Being that it's set in Ireland and the whole cast is Irish, no regulars. Justin Long did just do a Hallmarkie last year called Christmas With The Campbells, which seemed a bit of a lark, but now I wonder if Long is just totally into doing Christmas Movies?  Also this year he did the Christmas horror It's A Wonderful Knife.

How does it Hallmark? 
You know, not bad. And for being a Marvista production, really not bad. Marvista is responsible sometimes for the worst Hallmarkies ever (A Royal Corgi Christmas anyone?). Getting outside of the usual stable of local or Canadian actors by being in another country often seems to help these productions. There's normally a lot of bad acting, but even the kid actors here are really quite good (the scamps are great).  And they don't try to decorate this Irish town from an American perspective, it all feels very homey, and Christmassy despite not having a tonne of decorations, or any fake snow and whatnot.  There's even a few good chuckles.

I have to say though, I am disappointed this didn't give me a really old school Hallmarkie experience, where the girl goes back home to her perfect small town and rekindles a bit of a flame with her high school boyfriend and has to save a family business and thinks about giving up her big city job for PST life, but then her dick BF arrives, only in this case he's actually a nice BF, but one who she thinks was pressuring her into something she didn't want only to discover she actually did.  But with Justin Long on board, he needed a lot more to do so he's along for the ride to start and it's more a "THEIRstory" then it is a "HERstory". Oh well.

How does it movie?
Nah. It still falls into the under-written, chliche driven storyline, and doesn't have anything new to say. And the production values are still pretty thrifty.

How Does It Snow? 
No snow. None. Except the opening fake out of the Chicago skyline that turned out to be a snow globe.

T&K's XMas (2022) Advent Calendar Day 7: Three Wise Men and a Baby

 A Toast to HallmarKent

2022, d. Terry Ingram - Hallmark

The Draw: Three of Hallmark's superstar hunks coming together in a holiday riff on a classic comedy setup.  Even if I'm intentionally trying to not be that into Hallmark this year, this was a must-watch.

HISstory: There's no female lead in this one (what!?! Unprecedented![maybe]) so already it's a sweeping deviation.  We're 20 seconds in and Andrew Walker's got his shirt off and he's vainly pumping himself up in the mirror (Dirk Diggler-style).  Once dressed he's wearing a fire department T-shirt, so he's a fireman.  He also lives at home with his mom (Margaret Collins).  The living sitch is temporary, as he renos his home...for the past 10 months, (which his colleagues try to make sound like it's a very long time, but it isn't that outrageous, I've seen home renos in Toronto last over 2 years).  Mom wants him and his brothers to help with decorate up the place for Christmas, but for some reason Andrew dodges the request. At work (the "Spruce Grove Fire Dept Hall"... is this same building from Nine Lives of Christmas maybe at a different angle?  Or is blue siding typical firehall signifier now) the firepersons (as there's a woman on the crew) return from the third false alarm at the beauty salon this month, always when "Mr. January" Andrew is on duty.

Over at Funnen Games (nice logo, good pun) there's a Corporate Christmas party happening (at 9am), and Tyler Hines is just not into it (his festive garb is a blinking reindeer pin hidden under his sweater).  He dated one of his coworkers (Ali Liebert), and they seem to have a good rapport, but obviously it didn't work out.  This chatter here is not quite Mythic Quest, but I wouldn't be surprised if it was inspired by it. Tyler's boss winds up firing him because he's not a team player (being grumpy about Christmas seemed to be the last straw). As Tyler tries to publicly announce his quitting/firing to rally support, someone shouts "Nobody likes you".  Tyler retreats to video gaming at home and talking to 12 year olds online (not creepily, thankfully).  He lives in his mom's basement ("that's temporary").  Having dinner with mom, she mentions to him about decorating the place with his brothers, and coments "funny how busy everyone gets when I mention Christmas".

Paul Campbell is a pet psychiatrist and author (Prime Mates For Life), his motormouth redhead client (Fiona Vroom) kinda has the hots for him and misconstrues everything he says as a pass.  Later he's training a corgi who doesn't want to be trained (I can relate!).  He's approached by a group of walkers from the animal shelter who want him to do a talk to help boost adoption, but the very idea triggers his social anxiety. (Love the detail of him picking up his corgi and being covered in dog hair.) Later, while Tyler and mom are having dinner, Paul rings the doorbell and comes in bearing dessert. Tyler: "Quick question. Why do you come in the front door like you don't live in the back yard?"  So yeah, the brothers all live at home, at least right now, but they don't get along.  Mom wants just one more Christmas with everyone together under the one roof, doing all the traditions they used to: decorating the tree, making coookies, etc.  

Andrew's doing real show-off yoga at the fire hall when there's a knock at the door.  When he goes downstairs he find a baby, with a bag of supplies and a note for Andrew that the mom need him to take care of the baby for a few days and they'll be back for him at Christmas.  When he goes home, Mom is kind of ecstatic to have a baby. Unfortunately mom's sister has just had an accident and is in the hospital and needs to leave, leaving three men with a baby (gasp, that's never happened before).

Andrew has a work thing (kids charity), and Paul has a client visit (with the redhead again), so Tyler is defacto caregiver...and it does not go well.  Paul takes over, with a plan to bake cookies (with a baby?) and yeah, that doesn't go well either.  They clean the baby up and the brother's bicker brotherly.  Tyler wonders how someone abandons a child on Christmas, to which Paul responds, "Dad would know...oh right, we don't talk about that in this family".

Paul and Tyler are out buying more supplies as a department store, and they run into Ali, Tyler's ex from work, where he has to explain the baby, and gets an earful about how much he let down the rest of the team at work in his firing/quitting. Mom and her concussed sister talk about the baby, the boys, and how the brothers had kind of closed off from each other after their dad left.

Andrew returns from work, and is critical about Paul and Tyler's rearing skills, and they're happy to leave the baby with him.  The next morning, Andrew is doing great, as is the baby, and they get on with their day.  Paul's annoying redhead client reveals another side of herself.  Andrew's reno guy seeds the idea of his place being fit for a family.  Tyler's meeting with a friend reveals that he's virtually unhireable ("you're a wrecking ball").  Andrew accidentally switches the baby at the store.  The police solve the problem, and Andrew's perfect record is sullied.  

The brothers go out together to the Christmas square with the baby and decide to go skating (!), where Tyler runs into Ali, again, and they flirt some more.  The brothers rent elf costumes to take a picture with the baby and Santa (cue comedic slow-mo walk).  They get along for the day and kind of actually enjoy each other's company.  Their limited "dad" time with baby Thomas has put into perspective how great their mom is, and they decide to give her the Christmas she was wanting... starting with a new tree (sigh, Christmas tree shopping like 2 days before Christmas). Then they find out from their high school bully who lives across the street (and is still a dick, as played by Matt Hamilton) that there's a grand prize to the home decorating contest the local TV station puts on, and they seek out to win the cruise for mom.  As they plan, Ali shows up to return something and they enlist her help.  And then Paul's redhead client arrives with a casserole.  Dinner and decorating the tree lead to the boys doing their silly "Dance of the Sugar Plum" fairy dance which is all kinds of silly and awesome (as my wife said, "I love hot men doing a goofy dance.")

At the firehouse, the dead chief's son turns up and Andrew and him bond over the pain of having no father. When he returns home, the brother's have a blow out as Andrew talks about being the father figure for his brothers after a snippy remark from Tyler.  But they come back together when Paul thinks the baby has an emergency (just a rash). They hash out their tearful appreciation for each other and how their father's abandonment affected each of them.  And then they get to work on their Christmas display/Nativity performance... which is a bust...but they earn the respect of their bully which I guess is a small victory... and mom made it back in time for Christmas...and then baby Thomas's mom returns...

It's a tearful goodbye to baby Thomas, but a wonderful Christmas for the brothers and Mom.  A year later, Tyler and Ali are together again and he's gainfully employed, Paul and the redhead are together and he's doing a little better with his anxiety.  The bully across the way is now a friend and hangs out at Christmas.  And baby Thomas and the mom are friends of the family now (I'm assuming that Andrew isn't together with the mom...but that may be incorrect).

The Formulae: The movie opens like stock Hallmark: unimpressive title card, Generic Christmas Song and generic establishing shots (Seattle, a very Christmasy suburb, and a house with no decoration).  There's the Christmas tree shopping scene, where the brothers argue over what is the best type of Christmas tree (a conversation that has been had in Hallmark movies 500 times by now).  There's cookie baking and hot chocolate, skating, and of course and "stakes" in the form of a really no-stakes competition.

Unformulae: I just remembered that this isn't the first time we've had a Hallmarkie where there's not a female lead... The Christmas House was another one... but they're rare.  Hallmark is like (straight) porn... it's all about the women, the guy is just a vessel...but you want them to be good looking.. so it's weird when the guys are the showcase, but these boys earned it.  This was a flat-out comedy, really in the vein of 80's situational comedies, obviously riffing on Three Men and a Baby (and even having a little homage in the baby bottle tossing scene towards the end where they're just on a roll in this "three dads" mode).  It has romantic sub-plots but the focus is truly on the brothers and their relationship to one another. I liked each of these three characters, their personalities were very defined and very consistently played.  Plus, it's really, really funny.  There's some great lines of dialogue, and some tremendous physical comedy.  We're not used to this out of Hallmark, like, at all.

True Calling? The title is great.  Perfect.  It recalls both the classic film and injects Christmas into it. It's all you need.

The Rewind: There were a lot of great jokes in the first 20 minutes that I stopped and rewound, but perhaps the best moment is Tyler and Paul, after a long exhausting day with the baby, laying into Andrew for coming home so late.  It's kind of a cliched joke, but Tyler's physicality in the scene, doing squats with the baby and holding Paul's hand, was just hilarious.  As was their Sugar Plum Fairy dance.

The Regulars: Everyone! It's an all-star affair.  Even the bit parts seem to be stacked with Hallmark regulars.  Walker, Hines and Campbell are Hallmark A-list. Love interests Ali Liebert and Fiona Vroom, as well as bully Matt Hamilton and Thomas' mom Nicole Major all have Hallmark history and holiday romances in their past.  And co-writer, and Hallmark legend, Kimberley Sustad (Nine Lives of Christmas) makes a cameo, but she also co-wrote the film with Cambell.  Only Mom Margaret Colin doesn't have a Hallmark past, but she was stunt-casted because she was in the original 3 Men and a Baby.

How does it Hallmark? As a Hallmark movie it does a good job at hitting a lot of the tropes while doing something very different with them, even pushing them way to the background so that they're almost negligent (hot cocoa wasn't a big deal and led to a cute cheers with a baby bottle).  It's a flat-out comedy which is not what we expect at all from a Hallmark, and quite frankly this feels like way, way above the standards of the channel's usual far.

How does it movie? Given it's "Hallmark All-Stars" cast, I could see this being a theatrical release.  It doesn't have the production values, but it overcomes whatever budget limitations with a classic Hollywood comedy script and incredible performances from all players who seem to know there's something special about this one.  There's none of that "been there, done that" sleepwalking happening here.  By Hollywood comedy standards, it's pretty middle-of-the-road fare, but that's miles above your typical pre-2020s Hallmarkie that tried to be funny.

How Does It Snow? I had to go back and look.  The big Christmas lights showdown/nativity scene is mostly cotton batting with digital snowfall, with maybe a bit of manufactured snow happening.  It looks fine if you're not paying attention (and I wasn't).

Four Actions and A Comedy

(..wherein I present a review of a quintet of films brought together by the meager connective thread of having watched them months ago and are not quite fresh enough in mind to write longer reviews)

Baby Mama - 2008, Michael McCullers - netflix
Serenity - 2005, Joss Whedon - blu-ray
Salt - 2010, Philip Noyce - netflix
Centurian - 2010,  Neil Marshall - netflix
Kill List - 2011, Ben Wheatley - netflix

For no reason other than I don't remember in what order I watched these, let's start with the comedy.  Baby Mama came out many years ago as a vehicle hoping to capitalize on the notoriety Tina Fey and Amy Pohler gained for playing Sarah Palin and Hilary Clinton, respectively, on Saturday Night Live.  It's not strictly an "SNL movie", as it doesn't take an existing sketch and stretch it well beyond its breaking point to 90 minutes, ala Superstar or A Night At The Roxbury or Stuart Saves His Family, but it is the product of a writer-director coming from the SNL writers' room and, to no surprise, producer Lorne Michaels, so it's close.

I remember the commercials advertising the film back then and they seemed to center around Amy Pohler's lowbrow character going to the bathroom in the sink, and playing up heavily the sitcom-like scenario of a professional, well-to-do, single woman winding up sharing a her home with a crude, lower-class surrogate mother.  It looked forced, direly so.

Years later, Fey and Pohler are two of the most iconic female comic actresses on television, with their starring vehicles, 30 Rock and Parks and Recreation, being mandatory watching for comedy nerds.  My affection for Liz Lemon and Leslie Knope drove me back to Baby Mama, to see just how these two powerhouses handled themselves in a feature setting together.  Their intimate rapport creates an immediately likeable dynamic between the two of them, and I was pleasantly surprised to find that Pohler's character carried intellect, just not so much education or cultural refinement.  Fey's character is Liz Lemon played far more straight laced, though she makes a charming lead.

The script itself is bland, generic, which explains why it didn't come out to Bridesmaids-style "women are funny too" raves in '08 nor has it maintained any kind of cult status like Fey's Mean Girls.  It's a 1980's style comedy mixing the odd couple, the buddy comedy and the romantic comedy genres, but without really focusing upon the comedy.  It has heart, lots of it, but at the expense of humour.  I was hoping for an under-appreciated gem in which Pohler and Fey cut loose but they're fairly reigned it, though proving that they're both quite good at investing in their characters and roles.

Of all the films I'm covering, Serenity is the only one I've seen before.  I liked the Firefly TV show well enough, picking up on it shortly after its cancellation, but the spun-off film has always been where it's at for me.  I'm not a "Browncoat" by any means, but I still maintain that Serenity is the best space opera since the Empire Strikes Back.

Whedon's had a banner year with the Avengers, which was a necessary vehicle to show the non-geek masses exactly what this guy does.  The ensemble is his forte, but he's well versed in comedy and action, and certainly knows how to innovate and bring you concepts you've never seen before.  Serenity, 7 years prior, showcased all this with about a third the budget but just as much scope.

I don't think I've watched Firefly since before seeing Serenity in theatre, so the details of the program have gotten incredibly hazy, and I likewise probably hadn't seen Serenity since it's video debut, but I remember it with much, much more clarity.  Watching it again, on blu-ray this time, was like visiting with an old friend, and I was as rapt in its story as I know I was the first time I watched it.  Whedon's planet-hopping story brilliantly reintroduces the characters from the series, carries forward plotlines without requiring any of the background, and builds its own epic around them that is cerebral yet accessible.

I watched with a keen eye to see whether Serenity did work as a cold introduction to its characters and universe, and I'm pleased to say it does an exceptional job.  It skips over the "getting the band back together" bit, but presents each of the characters in a way that you understand their general being and their dynamic with one another in short order.  I particularly like the way Book, a regular character on the TV show, is reintroduced as that ancillary supporting character that gives the heroes aide in time of need, provides the hero guidance, but he himself remains much a mystery (as he was in the TV show).

The action in this film still wows me, the digital effects are one polish removed from those of today, but largely hold up.  I love the face-off between Mal and "The Operative" (Chiwetel Ejiofor is brilliant in this role of a mercenary with a serious conviction to his beliefs,  believably dangerous), both of them, though the later one is a classic.  The film still gives me tingles, and while the serialized nature of Firefly worked very well for the show, the epic scope of film worked even better.

Where Serenity mixes its SF and western genres impeccably well, and Baby Mama even managed to mash up different 80's comedy genres to some degree, Salt couldn't manage to bridge the gap properly between suspense, spy and action, not for lack of trying.  There's strong waft of Bourne Identity in the air of Kurt Wimmer's script, the quest for truth in identity is the center focus here as well.  Yet, the heightened tension and drama of trying to understand whether Evelyn Salt, the film's protagonist, is or isn't a deeply implanted Russian spy keeps getting deflated every time we're subject to another action sequence.

The action sequences are actually quite good, but they seem desperately overblown and out of place in what should otherwise be a cold war spy drama.  Basically think about if Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy were adapted into a James Bond flick, that's about how well Salt works. 

2011's Hannah explored much the same themes but with greater success and style.  Director Philip Noyce has played at this kind of thing before with the Jack Ryan films starring Harrison Ford, and this feels like a 2000's deviation on those films.  That the character of Salt was originally scripted to be a man and the film was rumoured to be positioned as a starring vehicle for Tom Cruise makes perfect sense, as this seems like just the kind of unmemorable, lacklustre action movie that major stars like him, or Harrison Ford in his time, or Angelina Jolie should be featured in.  

I actually wish screenwriter Wimmer had directed this, as, for all the faults of his previous efforts like Ultraviolet and Equilibrium, at least he was adventuresome in his presentation and provided something different.  Salt could stand to deal with a somewhat misguided and spastic flavour, as when it gets plainly ridiculous late in its third act, it needs a ridiculous director to spice that up even more.  Wimmer still would have directed it with a direness to the situation, but in his experimentation there would have been some much needed fun.  And that's precisely what Salt is missing.

Neil Marshall is a contemporary of Wimmer, similarly having a few cultishly adored genre pictures under his belt in Dog Soldiers and the Descent (not so much Doomsday though, I believe) but never having launched to the next level as a director, because of the material he's working with.  Centurion is definitely a complimentary film to his existing repertoire, a decently conceived and shot Roman Empire-period action-adventure, but well shy of meeting the touchstones of blockbuster status.

The film opens with a long helicopters shot of the Scottish Highlands (of course it wasn't called Scotland back then, but neither were there helicopters, so whatever) with some hella cheesy sweeping title cards that are like Superman meets Fringe meets Braveheart.  From there it leads into a brief but CGI-enhanced bloody attack sequence, a Pict raid on a Roman encampment, where the film's primary protagonist, Quintas Dias (Michael Fassbender) is the sole survivor, taken prisoner.  It's all, well, not so good.  It looks alternately cheap and corny, but cheap in the sense that its trying to hard to cover its minimal budget, and corny in the sense that it doesn't do a very good job at it.

The second through line is the dispensing of the famed 9th Legion (led by Dominic West as Titus Flavius) to quell the Pictish threat.  That doesn't go so well, but in the process they rescue Quintas Dias and we have a Saving Private Ryan or Blackhawk Down-type scenario, only in this case, the person being saved is a total badass warrior and tactician and pretty much takes the lead of the remaining Legionnaires.  After Quintas' escape he's set upon by a horde of picts, led by their greatest tracker, the mute and entirely vengeful Etain (played by a fierce, gorgeous and decidedly scary Olga Kurylenko).

The first act is pained by it's uncertain focus and its attempts to cram too many ideas and characters into one space.  I'm trying to determine if the set-up spent too much or not enough time (I'm thinking the former) in getting to the meat of the film, the cat-and-mouse chase, as the overwhelmed Romans try in desperation to maintain their cool and make it to the safety of a Roman fortress.  By the end of the second act the film shows signs of real life and the third act is largely entertaining.  Though it does try, it never successfully surpasses its B-movie roots.. Not-yet-a-superstar Fassbender and not-yet-a-cult-hero West do provide the film a needed amount of not just credible, but bravura acting, especially in the face of some opposing dire performances.  The majority of the cast is fairly solid, but one or two of them... yowza, which producer's kid and/or father were they?  It's not a fantastic film by any stretch, but also not as dire as the opening act would suggest.  Centurion is the rare film that somewhat redeems itself in its third act, rather than throws away all its good will.

Speaking of which, Kill List doesn't necessarily throw it all away in the third act but it certainly takes a surprising dovetail into far stranger territory than the opening two acts would suggest, one that the viewer will embrace wholeheartedly in it's no doubt affectionate tribute to Wicker Man and it's likeminded 70's brethren, or flat out reject. 

My initial reaction to the unravelling threads in the third act was rejection, but in hindsight I have a surer appreciation for it and what co-writer/director Ben Wheatly was attempting to do.  The basic plot of the film finds former contract killer and now full-time family man wrestling with the idea of taking on another job, even though he desperately doesn't want to.  The film opens with some intense relationship drama as Jay and his wife Shel argue heavily about finances and anything else that comes up in the process. Wheatley's script (co-written with his wife Amy Jump) is blisteringly intense and grounded in these relationship sequences.  The performances here by Neil Maskell and the fetching MyAnna Buring are frightening, awkward and far too believable.  That they can play these roles so naturally, incorporating the whole angle of contract killing as if it's a natural part of life for this couple is by far the film's greatest strength, building a foundation that allows the wonky third act to remain grounded and frightening, instead of silly and stultifying.

As Jay and his partner, Gal, proceed with their assignment -- one paying big bucks, but providing no answer and carrying far too many secrets -- Jay begins to unravel under the stress.  His violent, thoughtless reactions to his victims and their increasingly erratic response to his arrival ("Thank you", they say, smiling) is indeed distressing.  There's obviously a reason he tried to quit the business, but this particular assignment seems almost designed to push his very mental limits.

I didn't love this film, at least not initially, but it's stuck with me in the recesses of my brain.  Wheatley created a simplistic seeming story that is clever in its intricacy and subtlety.  The sometimes confounding, almost forgettable subtle, yet bizarre touches and asides throughout on have a later payoff that is impressive in its execution, since they come up so brazenly yet are paid little attention to. It's sparse soundtrack, limited more to atmospheric noise than music, maintains a certain chilliness throughout the proceedings, while equally Wheatley marks his settings, wardrobes, and lighting with a largely natural sensibility. 

That third act is a divisive doozy, a quasi-twist which seems like a remnant from '70's suspense filmmaking.  The Wicker Man remake proved that it's hard to execute that kind of scenario without seeming ridiculous (but that could be all Nic Cage) and Hot Fuzz managed it but through the filter of absurd comedy.  Kill List manages to make it logical and intriguing, but it still feels quite out of date, which may be why it's so surreal (but I'm still discerning whether it's effective or inappropriate).