‘Thou Shalt Kill’ Movie Review: A Decent Serial Killer Thriller With Perhaps Unnecessary Twist

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A serial killer who goes by the name Priest is punishing people in the name of God. They’re all sinners of different kinds in his eyes, and he believes all of them deserve it. He even reads excerpts from the Bible to them before putting an end to their lives—as we see in the opening scene of Thou Shalt Kill, directed by Richard Friedman. In the other corner, we have Shannon—who’s possibly having the worst night of her life. Her marriage is on the rocks as she’s already broken up with her wife, Jamie. What’s even worse is her lawyer calling to tell her that she’s most likely about to lose full custody of her son Albie to Jamie. And she can’t do much about it either, because Jamie has solid grounds—Shannon is a recovering alcoholic. She might have been sober for a long time, but at any point she can relapse—at least that’s what Jamie is going to say to the judge when it goes there, as the lawyer spells it out for her. Bottom line is, Shannon is pretty much doomed in this life. 

Imagine these two against each other—a moralistic serial killer and a woman who has nothing much to lose; and what you should have is a crackling battle where he tries to kill her and she (hopefully) survives. And director Richard Friedman provides you exactly that and then some more—I’m going to address that part later. For a movie like Thou Shalt Kill, what matters the most is how you’re presenting a story that doesn’t have much dimension. This is not a criticism, by the way; I’m just stating the facts here—the story we have at the center is practically about a fanatic and a sinner, and that’s just about it. I liked how the director has not made it action-heavy and relied on conversation. It is particularly appealing to me because I have a thing for movies that majorly features people talking and nothing else—gotta mention Richard Linklater’s fascinating debut, “Slacker” (1991), here, although that’s vastly different from the movie we’re talking about right now, both thematically and contextually. Anyway, in the case of Thou Shalt Kill, I understand the need of making it dialogue-oriented in opposition to action, given the movie is made on a shoestring budget. That’s why Friedman should bec especially lauded for going this way. However, the downside of that is there are times when the back and forth between our two main characters gets repetitive. It is never easy to engage your audience with only dialogue, and you can’t expect everyone to be Aaron Sorkin. That said, writer Nathan Illsley has done an adequate job here. Had the editing been a little more strict, I would have been able to appreciate the writing even more. 

Despite the low budget, Thou Shalt Kill has got its look and feel quite right. Even though it is mostly confined in a car during the night, the cinematographer has managed to make it look quite cool. The extensive usage of the colors blue, black, and grey has done the trick here, I suppose. Now coming to the most important aspect, Thou Shalt Kill is completely dependent on the performances of its lead actors—Augie Duke and Vince Lozano. Duke looked familiar to me, but after going through her filmography, I realized this is the first time I was seeing her. And I’ve got to say I am quite impressed with what she has done here. Her part was comparatively more difficult than that of Lozano’s, and she managed to show that she has got game. Lozano, on the other hand, is more popular in comparison, and I have seen him before. But this is probably the first time I’ve seen him in a leading role, and the actor has done well as the serial killer/priest. He is also one of the producers of the movie, which only means he has invested quite the stake in Thou Shalt Kill. As far as the supporting cast goes, everyone has done what they were needed to do. 

Now, I am a firm believer in a director being able to tell a story exactly how he wants to. It doesn’t have to follow any moral standard as long as it is not glorifying something terrible. The reason I am bringing this up here is the twist Thou Shalt Kill has in the end. I understand the urge the director felt here—to surprise the audience with something that they wouldn’t see coming. And I see it working out for some of you here, but personally, I fail to understand the necessity. I am obviously not going to spoil the twist here, as that’s a key aspect of this movie. But I am going to tell you this much: you are quite wrong if you think Thou Shalt Kill is just about a psychopathic serial killer trying to torment this down-on-her-luck woman. There’s a larger angle at play here, and that changes the context of the whole thing by the end. But my point here is, the movie could have done away with that part. It could have been just about a serial killer trying to hunt our hero—who’s not a perfect person by any means, but doesn’t deserve to go down either—and her trying her best to survive that. The reason I’m saying this is that this is a very common genre movie trope—where a huge twist awaits the audience at the end of the road. Some twenty years ago that would have been great, but by now, it has become quite dated, even though people are still trying it out. My personal opinion is that for movies like Thou Shalt Kill, remaining faithful and delivering on the basics—which it has done for most of it—is a far better choice. This is, however, an opinion, and I don’t intend to take anything away from the movie Richard Friedman has made. At the end of the day, I would like to believe this is the movie he wanted to make—and that’s what matters the most.


Rohitavra Majumdar
Rohitavra Majumdar
Rohitavra likes to talk about movies, music, photography, food, and football. He has a government job to get by, but all those other things are what keep him going.


 

 

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