KILLING GUNTHER

KILLING GUNTHER is an uneven, low-budget comedy thriller about a group of young professional hitman trying to kill the best professional hitman in the world for fame and glory. Some of the satire hits the mark in KILLING GUNTHER, but it’s made in a deliberately slapdash manner that doesn’t really come across too well and includes lots of strong foul language and extreme violence.

A young professional hitman named Blake, played by the writer/director (a Saturday Night Live alum), has hired a camera crew to film him and his friends, who are also professional hitmen, as they hunt down and kill Gunther, the world’s best, most notorious hitman (played by Arnold Schwarzenegger). The problem is, no one knows what Gunther really looks like or where he lives.

From the beginning of their hunt, Gunther always seems to be miraculously one step ahead. Consequently, the young hitmen start falling by the wayside, one by one. Also, Blake’s judgment is clouded by revenge. He really wants to kill Gunther because Gunther stole his girlfriend.

Some of the satire and plot twists hit the mark in KILLING GUNTHER. However, the movie is made in an intentionally slapdash manner that doesn’t totally work. Everything is uneven, even the acting. Perhaps that’s because of the movie’s low budget and quick turnaround, but then again, perhaps not.

Whatever the case, KILLING GUNTHER mostly just seems to be an excuse to make some distasteful jokes, some lame jokes and some good jokes about professional hitmen and the carnage they create. Of course, everything is laced with about 30 strong obscenities and profanities and other foul language, but not as much as one might expect for such a movie. KILLING GUNTHER also contains some extreme violence in a comical, satirical context (one scene shows a man suddenly getting shot dead in the forehead while some comical dialogue occurs).

That said, it becomes clear that being a hitman is not really a satisfying lifestyle, even if you survive. In fact, one of the hitmen falls for the female hitman in the group. Eventually, they stop being hitmen, get married and are shown in an epilogue living happily ever after with their child. Sadly, though, the woman comes from a Muslim family, so the guy tells the cameraman he converted to Islam to please the woman’s father, who dotes on his grandchild. The movie implies early on that the grandfather is a retired terrorist who became a hitman-for-hire before retiring completely to support his daughter’s violent career (he even cheerleads one of her kills in one comical scene).