frconte00
I agree with flimbuff's review. I never heard of this movie till I saw it on another board . . sounded interesting, so I watched it. What a good idea gone bad. Erik Palladino and Jennifer Rubin are both really good actors respectively, but even they can't save this movie. Comedy? Drama? Horror? (the various chopped off digits) . I think it should have gone the comedy route. Tony Denison is funny in this (is that a carbon monoxide detector?), as is Jon Polito, but they both are only in the movie for about 4 or 5 minutes each. The road trip was tediously boring (as were all of the lactose intolerant jokes and the camera equipment/film school dialog only a film student or a film geek would get). Oh, then it ends with "I Could Be Happy" by Altered Images played over the end credits. Huh???? An A for the actors, D- for all of the weird music choices (Hobo Thumpin' Slow Mo Babe?), an F for the lousy ADR, and finally, a D for the overall movie. Would like to see all of these great actors together again, in a good movie.
tram84mvp
Truly awful movie made on a shoestring budget with some bad acting and pathetic plot about a hit-woman who gets followed around by some young geeks who want to film her bumping people off. The lovely Jennifer Rubin does not even have any nude scenes to keep anyone even remotely interested. thank god it's a short movie so the waste of your time doesn't seem to gone on forever. Jennifer has made several other higher quality movies such as "bitter harvest" "delusion" and "the fear inside". This movie has nobody else you will recognize because i'm sure most of the actors got paid "scale" wages as i doubt they spent more than 100K to make this gem.
PeachHamBeach
I bought a copy of ROAD KILL from Blockbuster the day it came out in Sept. of 2001, and when I watched it the other day, I was reminded of just how fun a film it is.It's about a film student named Alex (Erik Palladino) who ignores his classmates' "seriofilms" featuring talking genitalia, and perks up only when his Kung Fu film is being shown. Needless to say, his teacher isn't too impressed with Alex's work, so he gives him an ultimatum: Do a new film that is unique and intelligent, or flunk the course.Alex is stressed out not only by his instructor, but by a mobster he got his "student loan" from, and his wackily menacing henchman who likes to play with knives. One of the funniest characters is Lars (Billy Jayne) a bleach blonde art student who throws tantrums on a regular basis. The complaints about dairy foods and the paranoia about carbon monoxide were really hilarious.The guys have a mysterious neighbor named Blue (Jennifer Rubin) and when they find out that she is a contract killer who is getting ready to change careers, they beg her to take them along on the road to her next and last assignment. Most of the film is quite funny and lighthearted but it takes a dark turn about 80 minutes in. To me, there isn't an excessive amount of violence, and anyway, the person Blue was violent with deserved to be punished.Overall, ROAD KILL is a unique indie film, with great performances. I even liked the music, especially the song in the beginning. Is this the Kate Donnellon I've heard so much about??? I'd sure like to see Matthew Leutwyler's second film THIS SPACE BETWEEN US (hint, hint) and I'm looking ahead also to DEAD AND BREAKFAST. He's a talented director. There's really nothing bad I could say about ROAD KILL.I'd give it an A.
flimbuff
Writer director Leutwyler has a unique idea here but he doesn't know if wanted to do a comedy or a drama. Alex, Palladino, is a film student getting tuition money from a local loan shark, Mr. Z. It seems his films all bear a striking resemblance to bad imitations of Jackie Chan's martial art works and his professor is threatening to end his college career unless he can come up with something original and Mr. Z is threatening him with more unless he can make his payments.Well, his new neighbor, Blue, Jennifer Rubin, turns out to be a hired killer who wants to get out of the business after one last job. Bingo, he gets the idea of making a documentary film about her career and last job. Naturally she goes along with the idea and Alex's roommate, Lars, goes along as his sound assistant. Sort of a combo "The Whole Nine Yards" and "Three for the Road"?But what we now have is a poorly shot and boring Los Angeles to Miami road trip with Blue bearing her soul and Lars killing any humor with poor sight jokes about his lactose intolerance.If that isn't bad enough we have a stop over on the way home so that Blue can get revenge on her pedohilic step father and Alex can fight over the moral dilemma of having filmed a paid killer in action.Rubin, a genuinely attractive woman and underrated actress is wasted in this mess and Palladino, who shows some comedic ability, is as confused as the writer/director is. Anthony Denison has a few funny scenes as the polite, art loving loan shark but this is the kind of movie that should have been given a D by any honest Professor of Film.