The Good

Mickey Rourke plays a Native American.

The Bad

This film sort of loses it over the long haul. No extras.Carmen and Wayne Colson (Thomas Jane and Diane Lane) are on the tail end of a divorce when they witness a murder that doesn't happen. Suddenly, they've got Armand "Blackbird" Degas (Mickey Rourke) on their trail and this is bad news for them as he doesn't like to leave witnesses. Aiding Degas is his new partner (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) who is loose cannon of the highest order. What ensues is a film about a killer who doesn't like to leave any trace of himself, leaving many traces as he tries to kill the Colson's over a misunderstanding.

The logic in this film is baffling and it probably accounts for why Miramax took 8 million years to release it (no doubt cutting and recutting along the way), with results that netted them a film that made $17,000 over it's theatrical run.

Features

No extras on this release.

Video

Widescreen Version. Presented in a "matted" widescreen format preserving the aspect ratio of its theatrical exhibition. I watched this standard disc on a Blu-ray player, fell asleep, and then I watched it on a standard player. I have to be honest I didn't really notice any difference. This movie has a lot of blues going for it and the images are very strongly composed. Celebrated cinematographer Caleb Deschanel has done fine work here too bad not too many people have (or probably will) see it.

Audio

Dolby Digital. Language: English Dolby 5.1. Subtitles: Spanish, English SDH. The audio on this release was good but they missed a huge opportunity to use the sound as a potential character in the film. Killshot movie filled with various types of villains, some are killers, others are thieves, and others operate on a more emotional level. I find it sad that the people behind the audio didn't try and key into that more.

Package

Mickey Rourke and Diane Lane are front and center on this DVD cover which features explosions but curiously no Thomas Jane. The back has some shots from this film, a critic's quote from Filmintuition.com (what does that tell you?), a cast list and technical specs.

Final Word

How in the world does a movie that is based on a novel from Elmore Leonard and is Directed by an Academy Award Winning Director (John Madden) only released in 5 theaters? Also, look at that cast... granted Mickey Rourke hadn't "come back" with The Wrestler but we've got Lane, Jane, Rourke, Levitt, Rosario Dawson, and a small cameo by Hal Holbrook!! Had this movie been positioned correctly it might have been able to make $20-$30 million.

Something tells me that Harvey Weinstein and Co. got this cast together for a song, made the movie, saw the film in post-production and felt they had a problem so that's when they started spending money. However, they probably didn't have too much (as they were leaving Disney at the time), so once they spent what they could they figured "you can't polish a turd" and just released it to satisfy a contractual obligation.

Overall, Killshot is an interesting if somewhat labored film and at 95 minutes it shouldn't feel that way.