Phonearl Good start, but then it gets ruined

Matialth Good concept, poorly executed.

FirstWitch A movie that not only functions as a solid scarefest but a razor-sharp satire.

Roxie The thing I enjoyed most about the film is the fact that it doesn't shy away from being a super-sized-cliche;

kapelusznik18 ****SPOILERS**** A drunk and pony tailed looking Mickey Rourke is Native American, or Cleveland Indian , hit-man Armand "Blackbird" Degas who screws up his latest hit-job by him and his high on and drugged up partner Richie Nix,Joseph Gordon-Levitt,knock off a real estate agency while customers Wayne & Carman Colson, Thomas Jane & Diane Lane, are there looking to buy a new house. With the two-The Colson's-getting a good look at the two robbers it's Pony Tail or Blackbird who decides to knock the two off in order to keep them from identifying him and Nix.We've had already seen Blackbird in action knocking off Papa played by Hal Holbrook, who obviously needed a check to pay his rent, for his mob boss for not paying off his casino gambling debts together with his girlfriend, Alexis Butler, as she was about to leave the shower room. With Blackbird obsessed to tie up all the loose ends in his latest failed robbery he's now determined to find and kill both Wayne & Carman before they, if in fact they want to, identify him to the police in knocking off the real estate agency.****SPOILERS*** The film really goes straight downhill from there on with an unhinged Blackbird murdering a number of people including a fellow Native/American as well as him high on drugs and beer drinking partner Richie Nix for really no reason at all just in order to keep in shape or on target. As for Carman whom he kidnapped Blackbird only keeps her alive so her husband Wayne, who also saw his pot marked face, can come into the open to rescue her so he put him as well as Carman away. A flop in both straight to video as well as cable TV, forget about about the theaters, "Killshot" collected dust on the shelf for almost three years until it was broadcast on cable TV with it's commercial brakes having a much higher rating the then movie itself.

zardoz-13 Elmore Leonard ranks as one of my favorite authors of all time, and I enjoyed the quirky way that he spun out a yarn. He created interesting characters that made you sit up and pay attention to their shtick. In fact, if you know anything about Leonard, you can spot his stock characters in his work and know where they fit in to the puzzle of his westerns and crime thrillers. Mind you, I thought Leonard's novel "Killshot" was a page-turner, but neither Oscar-nominated director John Madden of "Shakespeare in Love" nor Oscar-nominated scenarist Hossein Amini of "The Wings of a Dove" could distill the essence of Leonard's novel and his eccentric storytelling technique. Actually, I've read "Killshot" the novel, and I thought it was one of his best. Nevertheless, Madden and Amini have a problem capturing Leonard's spirit with the same success that the filmmakers who made "Jackie Brown," "Out of Sight," "Mr. Majestyk," "Hombre," "Joe Kidd," the original "3:10 to Yuma," and "Get Shorty" managed. Madden and Amini do their level best to suppress that oddness that distinguished Leonard's work. Occasionally, Leonard's trademark dialogue and spontaneous action emerge in all their glory, and the redeeming quality of "Killshot" is that it occurs more often than not despite the best efforts of Madden and Amini to suppress it. Meantime, the "Killshot" cast is good, but Diane Lane, who is four years older that Jane, struck me as a little long in the tooth being play his estranged wife. These two thespians didn't radiate much chemistry, but then they were kind of out of sorts with each other.During its best moments, "Killshot" is both spontaneous and improvised. The plot concerns a half-breed Native American contract killer who makes the fatal error of killing an innocent bystander after he has executed the man that he was paid to kill. Armand 'Blackbird' Degas (Mickey Rourke of "The Expendables") gets into trouble because he didn't kill the girl in the same place where he shot a mafia chieftain (Hal Holbrook) to death. Throughout the action, we hear Degas talk about loose ends. Leaving a witness to a crime who saw you commit it is something that Degas has taught himself never to do. The Toronto syndicate dispatches killers to liquidate Degas because he liked the girl. Degas decides to lay low, and he encounters an youth, egotistical drifter, Richie Nix (Joseph Levitt-Gordon of "The Look-Out"), who reminds him of his ill-fated younger brother who died tragically in a hospital shootout. Nix is a real loony-tune. He decides to blackmail a real estate agent by sabotaging his properties. He is looking to extort $10,000. In fact, he calls Nelson Davies (Don McManus of "The Shawshank Redemption")up and threatens him. Eventually, Degas and Nix visit the realtor's main office. Little do they know that Davies is not in his office when they show up to intimidate him. Instead, one of Davies' real estate brokers, Carmen Colson (Diane Lane of "Streets of Fire"), is in her office at lunch and his estranged husband, iron-worker Wayne Colson (Thomas Jane of "The Punisher"), is cavorting around in Davies' office. Nix makes the mistake of confusing Colson for Davies. When he makes more threats against Colson, the iron-worker takes them outside and attacks them.When the FBI learn about this incident, they decide that the best thing that the agency can do is put the Colsons in the Witness Protection Program. They move them away to Cape Girardeau, Missouri, where they assume different names. The Feds want to arrest Degas. Nix and Degas track down Carmen's mother and Nix persuades her to give him their new number. Degas and Nix has other things to worry about, and before long the FBI decides that the Colsons are in the clear. The Agency sifted through the burned-up wreckage of a Cadillac that Degas planted his brother in so as to throw the Feds off his scent. Nix and Degas break into Carmen's house out in the woods and hold her hostage. Again, they aren't expecting Wayne to show up when he does. It seems that this predicament that has shifted their lives has served to bring them together in a way that they haven't been together since before they split up. Earlier, when Degas confronted Carmen at her house, she had a shotgun aimed at him that she didn't use. In the final scene, Degas turns to find that she has a .38 snub nose revolver in her fists aimed at him. Degas remembers the gun because it belonged to Nix and he had emptied all the chambers. Nix had threatened Carmen with violence and he had rubbed a cartridge on her face that got lost on the floor. Imagine Degas' surprise when Carmen plugs him with that same bullet."Killshot" is a movie about circumstances. Meaning, there is no real, premeditated plot to speak aside from the chance encounters that the characters have for each other. Everything in "Killshot" occurs as a fluke, from Richie meeting Degas to Wayne monkeying around in Davies' real estate office and clashing with harebrained Richie. Joseph Levitt-Gordon does a superb job with Richie, though he comes dangerously close to hamming it up. Mickey Rourke is terrific as the doomed Degas. Barely released in theaters by Bob and Harvey Weinstein, "Killshot" deserved a better fate than it got.

NateWatchesCoolMovies Rosario Dawson Week: Day 5John Madden's Killshot went through the ninth ring of production hell before it was finally released in 07 or so, after like three years of gathering dust on the shelf. The resulting film didn't win anyone over who waited all that time with baited breath, because you can see the cuts, chops and gaps in story where it's been muddled around with, no doubt by the fuckwit studio. I still love it, flaws and all. Based on an Elmore Leonard tale (you can never go wrong with his work, it's a sombre tale of psychopaths, assassins and one hapless estranged couple (Thomas Jane & Diane Lane) caught in between. When legendary native American hit-man Arman 'The Blackbird' Degas (Mickey Rourke) botches a job for the Toronto mafia, he's forced on the run, and hides out with aimless young lunatic criminal Ritchie Nix (Joseph Gordon Levitt), who somewhat reminds him of a litte brother he lost years before. Rourke pulls off the native angle quite well, and shows vague glimpses of a humanity that was once there and has long since been buried in violence. When Jane and Lane accidentally witness him murder someone, he won't let it go, pursuing them beyond rationality or reason, even to his own end. Levitt never gets to play the wild card, and he rocks his redneck sociopath brat role with scary aplomb. Rosario Dawson has an odd appearance as Ritchie's girlfriend, an elvis fan who is seemingly a little bit challenged upstairs. Watch for a cameo from Hal Holbrook as a crusty old mobster too. You'll just have to imagine the federal agent character played by Johnny Knoxville though, because he never made it into the film and can now only be seen in ages old trailers that were a false start. Despite it's issues, I find it to be an atmospheric little pulp outing that does have the classic Leonard feel, a hard bitten, cold-hearted turn from Rourke that's one of his best characters in recent years, and a mean, unforgiving narrative set in picturesque northern Canada. Give it a shot, it deserves way more love than its received so far.

bowmanblue Killshot is about a couple (Thomas Jane and Diane Lane) who are in the process of getting divorced. However, they witness an attempted armed robbery by partners in crime (Mickey Rourke and Joseph Gordon-Levitt) and subsequently hunted down by the pair in order to 'silence' them - permanently.What follows in an hour and a half of cat and mouse antics and the criminals use all their resources to track the couple down, in order to eliminate them. Not a bad premise, but the one thing I found was that I found myself rooting for the bad guys - not because I agreed with their motives, but because they were just so much more charismatic than the 'heroes' (think how Brad Pitt's and Juliet Lewis' psychotic performances outshone David Duchovney and what's-her-name's in Kalifornia and you're in the right area).Killshot isn't anything special, or anything that you haven't seen before. However, what makes it worth watching is the performance of the villains. Some people have commented how Joseph Gordon-Levitt doesn't pull off 'the hard man' act very well. Yes, he was a little manic, but, either way, I found he stole every scene from Thomas Jane and Diane Lane, but was - naturally - outdone in the psychopathic stakes by Mickey Rourke.There's definitely worst ways to spend an hour and a half.