Conceptually, there’s a lot of potential with making a movie about a dysfunctional hitman overseen by a caring minder (played by Phillip Baker Hall) who bottoms out and decides to relocate to try and get his stuff together. To add to the pot, he forms an odd friendship with a normal schlub who doesn’t quite grasp or believe what the hitman does for a living. The only problem is that movie was made a couple of years ago and it was called The Matador, starring Pierce Brosnan and Greg Kinnear as the hitman and schlub, respectively. Quite a solid little charmer of a flick. But if you watched it and found yourself missing a romance subplot for the hitman or thinking that he had way too much hair, a version 2.0 of sorts is on the way and it’s even got a trailer.
You Kill Me stars Sir Ben Kingsley of BloodRayne infamy as the bottomed-out hitman who is an alcoholic in this version (Brosnan drank a lot, too, but had other issues). When his performance suffers, his minder (Hall again) sends him away to get cleaned up, where he gets a career change of sorts and meets up with love interest Tea Leoni. He also forms a friendship with Luke Wilson, subbing for Kinnear as Joe Sixpack. Of course, like all “I gotta get out of this racket” films, the hitman’s past comes back to haunt him and he has to make some choices between which life he’ll be able to live. From the look of the trailer, it’s cute enough, if way too familiar.
My hopes for this being better than it looks on paper reside with the man in the director’s chair. It’s John Dahl, and he’s responsible for CHUD faves like Rounders and Joyride, plus classics like The Last Seduction. If anything golden is to be found here, he’s going to be the one mining it, most likely.
You can see the goods for yourself in your choice of formats and HD by clicking right here.