June 29, 2007

Kill Me Again (Dahl, 1988)


The first film in Dahl's loose trilogy of modern noir, Kill Me Again is minor noir to be sure, but it is far more intelligent than it might initially seem, predominantly due to Dahl's acute awareness and playful manipulation of noir conventions. It is quite obvious that Dahl has a love for the genre, and though the plot is nothing new, at times quite threadbare, the enjoyably absurd internal logic and lack of pretension are quite refreshing. The cast is uniformly game, with an able Kilmer as the put-upon private eye, but it is Whalley (then Whalley-Kilmer) who steals the show as the hard-boiled femme fatale. Further evidence that the Midwestern United States is aptly suited to film noir.

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