Vashirdfel
Simply A Masterpiece
CrawlerChunky
In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.
Leofwine_draca
THE KILLING JAR is a fun, violent little B-movie thriller with a strong cast and interesting story. It reminded me a lot of Tarantino's most recent movie, THE HATEFUL EIGHT, albeit with a contemporary setting. I have to say that it's a lot better than the Tarantino movie. The setting is a typical roadside diner, where a number of patrons and staff are assembled before the mysterious and murderous Michael Madsen shows up and starts killing people. There's a mystery back story and lots of murk surrounding the character intentions to keep this moving along, plus plenty of graphic violence of the kind you'd expect in a horror movie. Aside from the solidly reliable Madsen, Jake Busey and Danny Trejo have memorable smaller roles and Amber Benson holds everything together nicely as the ordinary waitress caught up in a nightmare.
joifulness
When I say Danny Trejo was going to be in this, I knew this movie wouldn't be very good. I don't know why people like him. His acting is not acting at all. It is like he is just yelling all the time with a stick up his butt. The acting by the others are okay. I think it is just the writing and directing by the director that made this movie a fail in my opinion. Not even 20 minutes into the movie and I was irritated by the writer's/director's inability to understand that showing something is stronger than having an actor follow up with the obvious. For example, the waitress is rubbing her temples which could only mean one thing, she has a headache. Well the male actor sitting next to her asks what's the matter when we can obviously tell she has a headache. Second, when the waitress gets in an altercation with a patron, Trejo, the cook and owner, waits until it is over to jump to his waitress's aid.Finding out who certain people are and the backstory is very good, but all the violence wasn't necessary. It just felt like it was thrown in. You never know why some people do the things they did and you still won't for the main shooter really. If you are into gory movies this is for you and if you like a good attempt at a plot this is it, but I wouldn't watch this again for most of the acting, or directing. Although the guy from lost was amazing in this movie!!
dbs630-697-952794
For the most part I found this film enjoyable. I know Michael Madsen hasn't exactly been filling his resume with great flicks lately, but I thoroughly enjoyed this movie. It was full of believable characters who you actually enjoy hearing speak. The dialogue was punchy and built upon an actual plot. I would have given this film a 10 if it weren't for one fatal flaw. They put so much emphasis on the .45 automatic handgun you would have thought they would have done their homework. The .45 auto only holds 7 rounds in the magazine. The only way you have 8 rounds in the gun is if there's one loaded in the chamber and you put a full 7 round magazine back in the gun. The problem with them claiming that the gun had 8 rounds is, how would they know that the deputy was one of those people who did that? Every gun guy knows the standard .45 capacity is 7 rounds. That would have been every gun guys logical guess as to how many rounds the deputy had in his gun. It wouldn't have been practical to guess 8 rounds. Then the professional hit-man guesses that she is holding an empty gun. AUTOMATIC PISTOL 101: When the gun is empty the slide stays locked back, it would have been obvious that the gun was empty. If someone was pointing a .45 at me with the slide forward and the hammer back, my guess would be the gun is loaded. The slide locked back, the gun is empty. Lots of filmmakers make this mistake and it is really annoying. This would have been a far more believable movie if they had just taken the time to do their homework on their leading handgun. Really, you can have a million dollar budget, but it only costs about $25.00 for a box of ammo and a day at a shooting range to learn how your main weapon works. In this sort of film the gun was just as important a character as the actors. DO YOUR HOMEWORK!! That's all I have to say about that.
mongomauler-1
SPOILER ALERT.Not only is the description of this movie wrong, but it is so predictable and really kind of boring. It is a Diner, not a coffee shop and there isn't 7 survivors that I ever count. The five survivors not counting Jake Busey who would have made it 6 never really figured out who the other dangerous person was or even if he/she was there until the person admitted to it when only 2 of them were left anyway. Just another excuse for a movie to kill people and show a lot of blood on a cheap budget. It is so obvious what is going to happen because everything is restricted to so few actors in just one small roadside diner.
