![]() ‘Blue Beetle’ Review: At Least It’s Better than ‘Black Adam’?Īlice is the one who connects all the various characters in ‘Kill Me.’ Among them are: Jack’s sister Lucy ( Teresa Palmer), Lucy’s dentist husband Nathan ( Sullivan Stapleton), and mechanic Dylan ( Luke Hemsworth). The phone call he gets, in the middle of firing rounds, is from bar-tending criminal Jack ( Callan Mulvey) who wants Wolfe to start keeping tabs on his wife Alice ( Alice Braga). Wolfe is an assassin-for-hire, and we first lay eyes on him as he hunts a man in the Australian outback. takes 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 our thoughts wrestle 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. Overall, Kill Me Three Times is maybe worth a watch on Netflix but definitely not the price of a movie ticket.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 said, the characters get lost in the shuffle, which makes it difficult to get invested in any of them - most notably the stock siren Alice, who's supposed to be the linchpin of the whole thing. To its credit, the story does include some clever plotting, specifically in the third act, as well as a few nifty set pieces (emphasis on "few"). That's a shame, too, since Stenders' visual style is very much on point - not to mention the gorgeous locations, which do occasionally breathe life into some of the scenes. And despite the movie's comic sensibilities, only Pegg is able to elicit a few chuckles the rest is only slightly amusing at best. The dialogue is about as straightforward as it gets, only serving to progress the plot and leaving the characters high and dry. Teresa Palmer and Sullivan Stapleton in Kill Me Three TimesThe thing is, all these characters are pretty much the same on paper: same voice, same duplicity, same hokey one-liners, etc. There's the dentist (Sullivan Stapleton) and his wife (Teresa Palmer), who are also planning to murder Braga's character Alice the grizzled dirty cop (Bryan Brown), who's on to the murderous couples scheme and the hunky gas station clerk (Luke Hemsworth), who's having an affair with Alice. Indeed, one of the big problems with screenwriter James McFarland's script is that it's chock-full with Tarantino and Rodriguez-esque characters, but without any of their delightful eccentricities. That's not really the fault of the actors, mind you, but the writing. Alas, the same can't be said for the rest of characters, who are all positively bland. ![]() While Charlie Wolfe's sense of humor is on-the-nose at times, Pegg's delivery gives the character a much-needed bit of quirk. Obviously the big get for Kill Me Three Times is Pegg, and the Shaun of the Dead star does a good job of playing against type as a conniving, unfeeling gun for hire. In typical Quentin Tarantino fashion, we see the events unfold from numerous perspectives, each one shedding more light on the situation. However, Wolfe soon discovers he's not the only one after his mark, and ends up embroiled in all manner of mayhem, murder and betrayal. Set in the fictional Australian surf town of Eagles Nest, the story follows Charlie Wolfe (Pegg), a quicksilver assassin who's hired to kill the wife (Alice Braga) of a wealthy bar owner (Callan Mulvey).
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