The name of the movie makes it sound like a third rate film set in the adventures of primitive villages with very little plot. Then again, who can blame actors like Jim Belushi and Daphne Zuniga for wanting to be a part of this boring movie? For what feels like forever, Joseph Gordon Levitt has been playing movies where he sweats a lot and wipes it off his face; that’s a great way of describing his talents.
On top of that, Lil Wayne’s creative poetry comes to mind when the phrase hit ‘Killer Heat’ pops up. On many occasions, “Killer Heat” doesn’t feel too distant and provides a neutered version of what noir should be about. One can quickly tell that “Killer Heat” has a lot of hardboiled drama filled with betrayal, husky female singers, and ‘deep’ lyrics about Icarus screaming ensure that Keanu Reeves’ brother has a movie worth watching.
However, just as you are about to slip into a deep sleep, Gordon-Levitt, and here he’s a P.I. named Nick Bali, appears, adorned in a hipster island fedora and meets Shailene Woodley, the untouchable lady wife of a CEO leveraged in Crete shipping company. Her brother-in-law went free-solo up a vertical rock face and fell to his death. But she knows that it wasn’t an accident.
Woodley seems to possess a different kind of X Factor, not just a regular endearing personality (which she certainly has), but a captivating presence that constantly engages audiences. (I thought the critics failed to realize how much she had that in ‘Ferrari’, which was much irrespective of her slightly murky Italian accent, etc). In this case, her character, Penelope Vardakas (no accent this time), has called on Nick to investigate, and she doesn’t want Nick to be very loud, as the family is the crown of the island’s police and most of the population is bound to them.
Also, there is another interesting development which we would learn, that the husband, Elias and his dead brother Leo are twins. They are both played by Richard Madden, who is a Scottish actor, and is handsome in an average Ryan Seacrest way so you take a second to get that he is an actor who can act for real. Mostly, Madden acts Elias who runs the island with brutality and proves to be quite the rough hand his feathers get ruffled easily. But then, in flashback, Madden is rather ‘The nicer’ Leo, who happens to be the elder of the two brothers and the first one to fall in love with Penelope.
They first met very romantically at Oxford when for all intents and purposes, we see them getting closer to one another. Then, Elias comes in and this is where things get interesting he sends Penelope a text message inviting her to study with Leo whilst pretending to be Leo himself as he goes into her room. Which is kind of like David Cronenberg’s 1988 Dead Ringers starring Jeremy Irons as two identical twin gynecologists with weird and disturbing tastes in everything.
The bedroom fight between Penelope and Elias-as-Leo is so hot and tense (killer heat is a fair description) that I would have appreciated it if the film had taken this angle further: more of the impersonation and more of the brothers featured in each other’s plots. We quickly go back to the present where ‘Killer Heat’ is now a love triangle with a murder in it and the three angles get altered a bit, but not by much. Were Penelope in love with Leo while having an affair with him? And what exactly went down when Leo was killed? These are some of the standard things that Nick, who works with a local cop, Babou Ceesay, seeks answers to.
“Killer Heat” is inspired by Jo Nesby’s short story “The Jealousy Man,” and any intrigue which might have existed on the page is now rather diminished on screen, as the movie feels like an exposition of twists rather than an unravelling one. Philippe Lacoste, the director, does an acceptable job at bringing the story forth but somehow, it feels cold. Perhaps it is because more often than not, he wants the sentiments of the dots to be the connecting factor.
Nick is forever emptying whiskey bottles he is trying to forget about the family that he once had. His wife, Monique (Abbey Lee), was cheating on him, hence, the central motif of jealousy and violence in the film seems to haunt his character. However, the manner in which this theme is tangled into the plot seems rather too perfect in a film noir, with the last frames being a whitewash feel good moment.
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