KILL ME LATER

Despite its terrible title, KILL ME LATER is one of the more successful thrillers of 2001. It’s better produced than most of the bloated thrillers that the bigger studios put out these days. It doesn’t have big stars, however, and didn’t get the marketing it deserved, so it’s pretty much gone straight to the video stores after a very brief run in a few major cities.

In the story, a young bank officer named Shawn finds her relationship with a married man, Matthew, going sour. She finds no comfort in her father, who’s got himself a much younger wife and a new baby. A confrontational meeting with Matthew at the bank where they both work results in her discovery that Matthew’s wife is herself pregnant, a fact which Matthew failed to mention. Shawn takes a bottle of booze up to the roof of their building and contemplates suicide. This brings the attention of the police, who come just in time to interrupt a robbery of the bank’s delivery truck.

The head robber escapes to the roof and holds a cop at bay by threatening to kill Shawn. Shawn, of course, says go ahead and kill her, but the robber, an ex-con from England named Charlie, convinces her to help him escape. She agrees to do so, but only if he promises to kill her later. Later, however, he refuses to do so, and even stops her from committing suicide. Then, she tells him that she’ll promise not to kill herself if he gives her $41,327 from the robbery. Therein begins a budding, halting romance as Charlie and Shawn try to hook up with the robber who took the delivery truck and the money.

Director Dana Lustig shoots this story in a light, comical manner, helped by the funny script co-written with Annette Goliti Gutierrez. Selma Blair and Max Beesley as Shawn and Charlie have a comical chemistry together that makes the movie enjoyable to watch. The movie does not treat the topic of suicide too lightly, although there are some jokes made about the suicidal circumstances that bring Charlie and Shawn together. As one of the policemen chasing Charlie says at one point, statistically, there are more suicides than homicides.

Even so, however, KILL ME LATER deserves an extreme caution for the situations surrounding its suicide theme, not to mention the foul language and sexual implications in the plot. By the way, Shawn and Charlie do not really profit from Charlie’s bank robbery, but they do live happily ever after. Charlie, in fact, gives up his life of crime and Shawn only wanted the money to pay off her uncaring father for all the child support he gave to her late mother. Eventually, they seem to be eventually rewarded for the more moral decisions they finally make.