Kriv Stenders’ film Kill Me Three Times begins at the end – a shot of a beautiful stretch of beach in Australia with a voice over of hit-man Charlie Wolfe (Simon Pegg), loudly proclaiming “Fuck me!” followed by an explanation of how he has ended up there to meet his untimely death. The film plays out in three non-linear chapters, while each new chapter clarifies the prior one, it also reveals a new complication. The humor of the story stems mostly from the fact that although Charlie has been hired to carry out a murder, he consistently finds himself more of an observer than an executioner.
The first chapter, “Kill Me Once,” begins with Charlie (Pegg) observing the manipulative and controlling Lucy (Teresa Palmer) and her ill-fated husband, Nathan (Sullivan Webb) plot and carry-out the murder of Alice (Alice Braga), which they’ve scrupulously planned to look like an accident. The second chapter, “Kill Me Twice,” reveals other motives and plans; Alice (Braga) is having an affair with Dylan (Luke Hemsworth) and is trying to escape the hands of her abusive husband, Jack (Callan Mulvey). We also see the stale revealing of a safe full of cash, a large life insurance policy and of course, plenty of weapons. When we finally reach the third chapter, “Kill Me Three Times,” Charlie catches up with each character and uses their schemes of black mail and murder against them. While the non-linear story line could have been interesting and should have given it a ‘not everything is what it appears to be’ element, everything essentially WAS what it appeared to be. The attempt at masking each characters role of betrayal was weak and nothing was left a surprise.
For a film that has been deemed a “black comedy thriller,” the comedy was lacking and the violence was played out. One redeeming quality of this film was the panoramic cut scenes of the Australian beaches where it was filmed. These shots seem to parallel the ugliness of the characters as well as the abundance of violence taking place. Despite clumsy character development and a poorly executed story, the biggest annoyance is by far the score. It feels overbearing at times, with the same guitar riff reused continuously throughout the movie, it’s as though it operated separately from the movement of the film itself.
Although Kill Me Three Times was not an entirely original story, it could have certainly been more fun to watch if the humor wasn’t so forced. The cast was strong, especially with Simon Pegg in the leading role, but any talent that the cast had seemed to be squashed by the writing. If you enjoy gorgeous cut scenes of Australian beaches and are a fan of Simon Pegg, this may be the film for you, but overall Kill Me Three Times is a film I likely won’t remember seeing a year from now.
