#KILL ME THREE TIMES MOVIE#

uses a non-linear storytelling structure to tell the tale of how Wolfe found himself nearing his maker. Wolfe is complaining because he’s apparently about to die, and “Kill Me Three Times” - divided into three chapters, called “Kill Me Once,” “Kill Me Twice,” etc. It’s the very first dialogue spoken in the film, and proves to be one of few laughs we have. “Fuck me,” says Pegg’s Charlie Wolfe in the opening voice-over, as an aerial shot of a gorgeous Australian beach comes into view. If it were funnier, perhaps the trite action and insipid characters could be excused, but it isn’t nearly funny enough for that. As it stands, they are both culprits for making “Kill Me Three Times” feel artificial in every possible way, despite having Simon Pegg along for the ride. As we wrestle with our thoughts over who to chastise for this incomprehensibly cluttered picture, it can either be James MacFarland for his first screenplay or Stenders for not using the experience he has from his more compelling movies (“ Red Dog,” “ Boxing Day”) to take control of the situation. Without the three-way punch of more panache, more Pegg, and more panoramic views of Australian landscapes, Three Times stops short of being a killer time.Here’s a suggestion for Kriv Stenders, director of the flagrantly messy “ Kill Me Three Times”: don’t be so kind to first-time screenwriters. That's part of the film's design, but without much incentive to follow the mystery, it's a design that can't quite work. What's more, the story itself is frustrating, taking forever to communicate the stakes. The pacing is way off: there's endless, needless footage of characters getting into cars and driving to new locations. But the film isn't enough fun to recommend on its own terms, with its sloppy construction and so little in the way of stylistic flourishes. Kill Me Three Times has elements that would seem to peg it (no pun intended) as a fun genre exercise, including pitch-black humor, corrupt law enforcement, a love of rural settings, and a desperately bloody climax. (The actor's Britishness, by the way, is explained by calling him a 'tourist,' despite the fact that he heads what appears to be a thriving private-eye business.) Pegg is surrounded by a cast of mostly Aussie ringers, including Palmer and Luke Hemsworth (brother to Chris and Liam), who can't seem to decide how seriously to take their roles. He shows off his natural charisma while doing something as simple as playing with cigarettes.

#KILL ME THREE TIMES MOVIE#

Pegg, who begins the movie as the dispassionate observer and audience surrogate before taking center stage, is fun to watch even when he isn't given much to work with. Some of the interconnections between characters feel superfluous, including the way Braga's young woman, at a moment of extreme distress, winds up at the dentist's office in the first place. The hitman lies dying at a beach house in the opening scene, before flashing back to show how he entered the lives of two financially misbehaving dentists (Teresa Palmer and Sullivan Stapleton), an alcoholic rage-prone bar owner (Callan Mulvey), and the bar owner's wife (Alice Braga) who becomes everyone's primary target. In between, there is the story, which involves a seedy hitman played by cult movie hero Simon Pegg, clad in leather jacket and horseshoe mustache.

The movie's chief advantage is that it was filmed along the coast of Western Australia, allowing ample opportunities to admire the scenery with its jagged cliffs and lush wilderness. When all is said and done, the technique feels a bit desperate. Sadly, Kill Me Three Times is the former more than the latter case. Jackson's concluding speech in Pulp Fiction resonates more strongly because we already know, chronologically, what happens next).

The danger is that such a device will feel like an artificial means of stretching out a thin story, instead of a mechanism that complements it in a satisfying way (example: Samuel L. This twisty structure is the movie's hook, though after two decades of similar narrative games in cinema, the gambit feels overly familiar.

Kill me three times