Movie Review: Killing Gunther
What We Liked
What We Didn't Like
In the movie review business, you see films that make you think and inspire you to greater things. There are films that leave you with your jaw dropped in absolute shock and disgust, wondering how anyone would loan the filmmakers money to finish something so terrible. And then, there’s the stuff that makes you chuckle, even as you sit there and think of how silly and ridiculous it all is. Guess which category Killing Gunther lands in?
Taran Killam (one of the more recent Saturday Night Live (SNL) alumni to dip his toes in the movie waters) pulls triple duty as director, writer, and lead, playing Blake, a hitman who has hired a camera crew to document his journey to kill the best hitman on Earth, Gunther, for reasons that aren’t entirely clear at first. Along with a cadre of fellow hitmen (including fellow SNL player Bobby Moynihan), they feel victory is assured, until Gunther, to really no one’s surprise, proves much more elusive than they bargained for.
As far as the movie itself goes, it follows the typical mockumentary format decently; even though the reason for having a film crew is more gimmick than anything else. This is played up in the action sequences, in which several are conducted with either lengthy single camera tracking shots (the attempt to get Gunther in an office building is well choreographed) or the finale, which is cut together from several camera angles that get thrown around in a clever way. Everything is very well shot in that regard; there is never a time where the action gets muddled.
As for the humor, there are a lot of dark chuckles to be found; as a movie about hitmen, a lot of the gags revolve around death and assassination (including one hitman who uses poison because he can’t stand the sight of blood; it goes without saying that there is more than one instance where this fellow loses his lunch). But halfway through the movie, the gags begin to run out of steam; the mood switches gears after a pivotal plot point and starts trying to force character development, which completely kills the pacing. Even at 90-odd minutes, it makes the movie feel way longer than it should, and probably could’ve lost a few of these scenes without affecting all that much (or at least rearranged them so they flowed into the movie a bit better). Thankfully, the grand finale goes a long way to bringing back the feel of the first third of the movie, and the whole thing ends on a delightfully high note.
Is Killing Gunther a great movie? No. But sometimes, if you’re in the right mood, you run across something delightfully trashy and silly which just goes and puts a smile on your face. Killing Gunther may not be the most consistent comedy I have ever seen, but it elicits more than enough chuckles to be worth a look.
Seth Paul
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