Killing Time Reviews

Like its bumbling band of frazzled, deeply dim killers, this ragged crime picture seems to aspire to Tarantino-esque black comedy but never quite pulls it off. Suave serial sex killer Jacob Reilly (Nigel Leach), a Sadean aesthete who's made a fortune dealing in antiques, has scoffed at the law for too long. Detective Bob Bryant (Craig Fairbrass, who bears a considerable resemblance to Mel Gibson), enraged that Leach's last victim was a cop, intends to do something about it. So he hires an Italian hit woman (Kendra Torgan) to wipe out Leach and his criminal cohorts, then blackmails petty criminal Charlie (Stephen D. Thirkeld) into killing her as soon as she finishes the job. Charlie and his half-witted buddies (Neil Armstrong, Ian McLaughlin and Rick Warden) follow the lethal femme as she goes about her bloody business, nattering away in their van about itchy labels and Burmese land mines, presumably because there's nothing left to say about foot massages and Royales with cheese. On the plus side, this low-budget UK import contains a number of very handsomely composed images and fledgling director Bharat Nalluri shows some flair for striking camera placement. But the script lurches awkwardly from scene to scene, the dialogue is forced and the performances, to put the kindest face on things, are rather uneven. The film's greatest asset is Linda Fiorentino-like beauty Torgan, whose sleekly threatening wardrobe and vixenish way with heavy artillery conspire to make her highly watchable.