On the page Elmore Leonard’s plots are brilliant, the characters complex and original and the action brutal. But with the notable and distinguished exceptions of Jackie Brown, Out of Sight and, with certain reservations, Get Shorty, the screen adaptations of this fine novelists work seem to defeat filmmakers (see The Big Bounce). Perhaps this is because what Leonard values in prose are the kinds of things movie executives like to edit out; atmosphere, tangled plotting and a mood of moral relativism that feels authentic and true to the low life settings and (mostly) criminal casts that populate Leonard’s stories. Still, what’s sympathetic and acute in the books can play cold-blooded and scary on screen (or at least that’s one rationalisation for the way Leonard’s toughness gets softened).
Directed by John Madden (Shakespeare in Love) Killshot is a fair-to-middling Leonard adaptation and that makes it a pretty good crime film. The plot is classic Leonard, which is to say it’s not one plot – it moulds three strands of action brilliantly.
Blackbird (Mickey Rourke) is a hit man who’s screwed up on the job and ends up on the run from his mafia bosses. Richie (Joseph Gordon Levitt) is a hot-wired bank robber given to crazy get rich quick schemes. Carmen (Diane Lane) is a real estate agent who is in the middle of splitting up with hubby Wayne (Thomas Jane). Anyway, Leonard contrives to have these three separate story paths cross over into his favourite plot – chase, run and hide. It also sports another Leonard favourite; the necessity to form a couple or a team to ensure survival in the face of great danger.
Written by Hossein Armini the screenplay sports some great dialogue and pursues the plot with a rigour that’s rewarding (it never seems in a hurry it just flows). Madden resists to make more 'colourful" the outsized characters of Rourke and Gordon-Leavitt (the trouble with Get Shorty) so it plays very deadpan and sincere. Yet, it all works on about the level of a good cable TV movie – strong production values, solid performances and it’s all a little dull. Madden doesn’t pump it for its sinister potential or try to make more of the nuances here about the clash of sensibilities, culture and race (a favourite theme of Leonard’s).
Originally slated for a theatrical release the movie ended up going straight to DVD, perhaps a victim of the Weinstein Company’s notorious 'meddling"? Or maybe just a sign of the times in that crime is no longer 'cool" for audiences the way it was in the 90’s.
