‘The Kill Room’ is a comedy thriller that follows Patrice (Uma Thurman), a down on her luck art dealer as she encounters Gordon (Samuel L. Jackson), a Black Jewish deli owner working for the mob, who approaches her with a business proposition designed to alleviate both of their money issues.
The film opens on Reggie (Joe Manganiello), an assassin working with Gordon, as he accosts and proceeds to kill a coffee shop owner. The black streaks from the store owner struggling to escape left on the tiled shop floor transition to a paining displayed in Patrice’s gallery. Pushing the two worlds to collide, Patrice’s art gallery has been failing to draw in significant buyers, leaving her in a desperate situation, only exacerbated by the success of her peers and existing clients expressing their concern for their joined future.
Similarly, Gordon finds himself with financial issues, being unable to launder his ill gotten gains for the mob. Having convinced his boss, Gordon approaches Patrice, who soon agrees to work with him. Asking Reggie to produce pieces that can be catalogued, Patrice’s attempts to keep the emerging artist – ‘The Bagman’ – a secret causes him to explode on to the art scene, inviting the possibility of legitimizing Reggie’s work.
Seeking to slam the absurd state of the art world and the way that particular market functions, the film has a field day by delivering a number of farcical caricatures of people circulating within that realm, providing for an embarrassment of self-important individuals who have more money than they know what to do with. In between all of this, wily Patrice is ready to make a killing, testing the limits to which she can push ‘new found artist’ Reggie’s next masterpiece.
Having a laugh at the expense of the all too rich, but not too wise, the film shoots for a very broad comedic approach which it doesn’t quite manage to marry with the darker side of the story. Uncovering that Reggie is working as a criminal only as he is indebted to the mob and he is trying to protect his sister, Patrice, Reggie and Gordon devise a plan to escape his servitude through a conceptual art piece. Escaping the mob, Reggie and Patrice are freed from their commitments by taking out a high level criminal.
The cast deliver an interesting dynamic, particularly Thurman’s Patrice and Jackson’s Gordon as the two plot and scheme to get by in their respective roles. What seems to be missing however is a further development of the characters motivations beyond their desire to stay afloat and distance themselves from the criminal word, leaving the characters unexplored and largely one-note.
‘The Kill Room’ sets out to undercut the art world by pairing it with the criminal one, but doesn’t quite poke enough fun at either to formulate a cutting criticism or deliver an exiting thriller. Not edgy enough to completely drag the art crowd through the mud or thrilling enough to generate enough suspense through its criminal counterparts, the film is too middle of the road to undermine any of it targets. The film does provide for a few good laughs and excellent repartee between Thurman and Jackson, but overall misses the mark on delivering a unique piece.
Score: 2/4
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