Working
as a hired killer is a heck of a way to build up self-worth, but at least the wheelchair-bound
Zoli has finally found something that engages him. He suffers from a
progressive curvature of the spine that will eventually kill him without
corrective surgery, but his refuses to accept his absentee father’s guilt money.
Perhaps he and his roommate Barba will be able to fund the procedure themselves
when they start assisting Rupaszov, a professional killer recently paralyzed
from the waist down. Nobody sees them coming, except maybe Rupaszov’s double-crossing
client in Attila Till’s Kills on Wheels (trailer here), which opens tomorrow in New York.
Zoli’s
mother tries to sugarcoat it, but he knows his father walked out soon after he
was born to avoid dealing with him. Like a Dostoevskian character, he would
rather implode on his own terms rather than take scraps from the table of the
well-to-do father he has never met. However, there could be an alternative,
thanks to the arrival of Janos Rupaszov at their assisted living facility.
Before
his injury, Rupszov was a fireman, but he now works as an assassin for Rados, a
Serbian gangster out to eliminate an entire rival gang, man by man. Initially,
Rupaszov cuts through them at a blistering clip. After all, nobody considers a
man in a wheelchair to be any kind of threat, so guards are down around him. Of
course, as the hits get more complicated, he needs a handful of assistants like
Zoli and Barba, who happen to be equally invisible to the man on the street.
Aside from the semi-autobiographic but highly exaggerated comic book Zoli’s is
writing with Barba, his work with Rupaszov is about the only thing that will
get him to stop moping around their room.
Throughout
Kills, Till walks a fine line with
the agility of a Flying Wallenda. He definitely delivers the edgy, dark humor
the very premise promises, but the film never feels exploitative. In fact, Till’s
screenplay sneaks up on viewers emotionally coldcocking them in the third act. Hungary
isn’t exactly the most progressive nation on Earth these days, which might heighten
some viewers’ wariness. Yet, Till has probably produced the year’s smartest,
most sophisticated film about comparative abilities. Frankly, Hollywood and
Western Europe do not have the gumption to make such an honest, in-your-face
film, so it is up to the couldn’t-give-a-damn Orban-era Hungary to blast away
our self-serving clichés.
Drawing
from their real-life experiences, Zoltán Fenyvesi and Ádám Fekete play Zoli and
Barba like complicated characters rather than symbols. Indeed, they are
completely and utterly believable teenagers: ill-mannered, uncouth, and generally
preoccupied with girls. As Rupaszov, Szabolcs Thuróczy’s magnetic screen
presence compliments them nicely. On the other side of the coin, Dusán
Vitanovics is entertainingly sinister as the absolutely, positively
irredeemable Rados.
