You Kill Me (2007)
Directed by John Dahl
While drying out on the West Coast, an alcoholic hit man befriends a tart-tongued woman who might just come in handy when it's time for him to return to Buffalo and settle some old scores.
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What critics compared You Kill Me to
An unpredictable, enjoyable mob comedy from director John Dahl ("Red Rock West," "The Last Seduction") and scripted by Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely ("The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe"), it's the story of Frank (Kingsley), a hit man for the Polish mob in Buffalo.
After acquiring indie cred with his first two features, director John Dahl ("Red Rock West," "The Last Seduction") wasted away in Hollywood mediocrity with his followups ("Rounders," "Joy Ride," "The Great Raid").
Unlike many others who have paid tribute to the genre, Dahl ( Red Rock West , The Last Seduction , etc.) seems to understand its mechanisms from the inside, from an emotional place.
Of course, emotionally damaged hitmen are common nowadays, as seen in Grosse Pointe Blank (1997), Panic (2000), The Matador (2005) and on "The Sopranos," but Dahl and writers Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely ( The Chronicles of Narnia ) find a fresh take, balanced between deadpan humor and nasty violence.
McDonagh doesn't quite reinvigorate the genre, but if you liked Lucky Number Slevin or You Kill Me , you'll like this too.
Having nabbed an Oscar himself (for Six Shooter, 2006’s Best Live Action Short) writer-director Martin McDonagh sticks to black comedy for his debut feature, mixing the pathos and un-PC laughs of similarly-toned capers The Matador and You Kill Me.
But joining “The Whole Nine Yards” and “The Whole Ten Yards” were the annoyingly yakkety-yak “You Kill Me” and the politically overwrought “War Inc.,” a sad sort-of sequel to the great “Grosse Pointe Blank.”
That actually makes the flick sound more mysterious and spooky than it is: instead of aiming for a sense of wonder, writer-director David Koepp ( Secret Window ) and his coscreenwriter John Kamps ( The Borrowers ) shoot for a whisper-light sitcom sensibility that results in a movie that is empty, bland, and forgettable, even with such talents as Gervais and the usually irresistibly effervescent Greg Kinnear ( Baby Mama ) and Téa Leoni ( You Kill Me ) onboard.
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Writers Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely have shown a knack for hardboiled black comedy before, notably in "You Kill Me," and it's easy to imagine that the Coen brothers could have fashioned something sharp and funny out of this dismal true story.
Whether it was the input of screenwriting team Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely ( You Kill Me ; Chronicles of Narnia ; Thor ) or some outside influence, nobody knows.
Between grinding out scripts for the three Narnia movies, Marcus and McFeely wrote You Kill Me, a pretty sweet comedy, directed by John Dahl, detailing the romance of an alcoholic hit man (Ben Kingsley) and a tart-spoken woman (Tea Leoni).
Markus and McFeely wrote the pulpy-good Captain America: The First Avenger and the wonderfully droll black comedy You Kill Me , so there’s decent support for this theory.