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(SXSW) THEY WILL KILL YOU: Toys with the Limbs of Its' Genre Influences

By. Michael Fairbanks

 

The sequence that caps off the first act of Kirill Sokolov’s amusing bruiser THEY WILL KILL YOU lets us know exactly which movies shaped this thirty seven year old filmmaker. Asia (Zazie Beetz) has just spent the last few minutes in a hotel room pulverizing the group of masked assailants who surprise attacked her mid-sleep. It was a brutal, physically demanding hand to hand sequence. Some henchmen are pulverized with brutal combos straight out of The Raid. Others are flayed by Beetz’s machete as their bodies spurt geysers of blood that would make Lady Snowblood blush. She makes her way to the hallway and hotel manager Lilly (Patricia Arquette) is waiting there to confront her. After the two exchange gruff variants of “you owe me some answers” Arquette practically stares down the lens as she howls “who the FUCK are you?” A crash zoom paired with a stock sound effect speeds to Beetz’s expression as she quizzically stares, shaking blood off of her machete onto the wall as the words Asia Reeves appear on screen. This text segues into a narrated flashback that expands upon Asia’s backstory that we already saw a piece of twenty minutes prior. That’s right, we may be thirty four years removed from Reservoir Dogs and yet we find ourselves in yet another cycle of “I can make a Quentin Tarantino movie too!” The snake is starting to eat its tail, though. THEY WILL KILL YOU follows in Tarantino’s footsteps by stringing together a pastiche of early aughts martial arts flicks and 2020s era “eat the rich” pulp farces. Thankfully, there can only be so much wrong with a hyper stylized montage of Zazie Beetz fight scenes. 

 

THEY WILL KILL YOU has been frequently compared to Ready or Not and for good reason. In fact, the sister centric storyline somehow feels like a fusion of both installments in that series despite Here I Come only opening one week ago. Ten years prior, Asia was imprisoned for shooting her abusive father in front of her sister Maria (Myha’la). Upon her release, she gets a tip that Maria is trapped inside of the Virgil hotel and poses as a new maid to infiltrate it. This is when Kevin (Tom Felton), Sharon (Heather Graham) and other assorted goons attack her, and fail miserably. Sadly, one death is not enough. All of the inhabitants of this building are part of a satanic covenant that allows them to survive any harm done to them as long as they remain on the mystical list. Asia must obliterate her opponents over and over again in order to reach her sister and escape. 

 

 

Zazie Beetz has been patiently waiting for the chance to headline an action blockbuster for some time now. Her short lived supporting turns in films like Deadpool 2, The Harder They Fall and Bullet Train have always charmed and hinted that she’d be able to really cut loose with more screen time. She completely commits to the action. Asia’s fighting style is brutal and dirty. She always goes for the cheap shot out of sheer agitation and Beetz knows how to spin those moments into being funny. She’s an affable, charismatic screen presence who ensures that THEY WILL KILL YOU is never less than fun. It is just a shame that Kirill Sokolov & Alex Litvak’s screenplay has absolutely no interest in developing a real personality for Asia beyond the rage that fuels her quest. 

 

This glaring inability to write women becomes all the more apparent once Maria folds into the picture. She has very little to say other than “you abandoned me” until she eventually decides that she’s okay with knowing her sister again. The two curse each other out and that’s about it. Zazie Beetz and Myha’la do not share an iota of connection although this is partially due to one of Industry’s main divas continuing to be completely incapable of transferring her charms to film. Beetz overcompensates for how thin this material is, Myha’la disappears. It’s a stark contrast to the extremely similar dynamic displayed in Ready or Not - Here I Come that was rescued by the crackling chemistry between Samara Weaving and Kathryn Newton. 

 

 

It is amusing to see Felton, Graham and Arquette chew scenery as these mustache twirling villains but most of their novelty comes from what happens to those characters’ bodies. Sokolov has a particularly twisted affection for Heather Graham’s exploded remains, turning a severed part of her body into an extended sight gag that becomes one of the film’s most playful and inventive moments. The regeneration gimmick is a sturdy excuse to retread this setup. There’s no hiding or seeking here. It’s just a long street fight. 

 

Sokolov’s direction is strongest when he’s not trying to over-assert his flourishes. The first hotel room brawl is a somewhat grounded brawl that establishes Beetz as a formidable and resourceful action heroine. Later on, she picks up an ax lit with CGI flame and takes on a horde of masked goons in a darkened parlor room. This sequence is executed in a series of Oldboy style wide angle shots that buckle under the attempt to achieve a slick composition. Beetz does fantastic action work in this film but she is not the type of seasoned athlete who can pull off hyper expressive choreography in a single shot. Instead, we’re treated to her swinging her ax at one goon, watching them fall down in slow motion, and then perhaps walking over to a second one to do the same thing. Sadly, it feels more reminiscent of the dismal central massacre in Psycho Killer than the Snowpiercer sequence that it so clearly is trying to emulate. Thankfully, the third act fight scene introduces a creature who shifts that showdown into a mano y mano duel straight out of Mortal Kombat. The film’s tonal absurdity clicks perfectly into place for this showdown which will delight monster lovers and mortify those who cannot look at dead animals. 

 

THEY WILL KILL YOUestablishes Kirill Sokolov as a filmmaker who can deliver studio friendly post-Deadpool Hard-R actioners. We’ll be trying to remember which movies are his and which are Ilya Naishuller’s before long. It will be a thriving career if he plays his cards right and he should start by finding screenwriters to scribe any film he makes in English. The stylistic impulses are there but there is no reason to care. I can only imagine how cathartic a film about vaporizing an underbelly of rich freaks who literally cannot be killed would be if it managed to express a feeling beyond “they should die.” 

 

For more SXSW coverage, check out reviews on HOKUM and DRAG