Dion put me on to this as an example of a Canadian film - Copper Mountain was the other, and this belongs in its ignominious company - where you just can't understand how it ever got the green light, in this case from Telefilm not to mention M. Emmett Walsh's agent. Did anyone read this script before signing off? Was it a gesture of equanimity to our Alberta friends? I'm serious - they should have changed the end credits so they read, "Any similarity to actual human behavior is entirely coincidental." I am all for illogic and rejection of conventional narrative values, but you can't have it both ways - cat-and-mouse procedurals have to make SOME kind of sense. I don't even know where to begin - there should be a drinking game (or screen writing course) based on this movie's plot holes. I'll just pick a couple at random. A) In the first scene (the first scene!!), the guy snapping photos of Michael Ironside dumping the body sees he's been noticed - and reacts by riding his motorbike directly TOWARD him and onto the main road, the better to be killed. As he's being shot at, with no cover, he hops off the dirt bike to take another picture, falls back like he's been shot, then climbs back on the bike like nothing's happened. B) When the guy's ladyfriend yells into the phone "Wait there - I'll be right over!" he doesn't wait there and she is not right over - although both their lives depend on it. C) Unless I'm missing something, the dead guy's photo studio is accessed both by freight elevator and ground-floor loading dock. The first time our hero walks in, it's by elevator, going up....from where?? D) The master assassin Ironside, who helpfully provides his target with his given name, tries to frame him by scattering about some polaroids of our hero in apparent acts of murder. Hint: when framing somebody, do NOT encourage the cops to question why there was a third party in the apartment snapping photos. E) In the climax, Our Hero gets back at Ironside by taking polaroids of HIS murder in progress and leaving them around the forest, where he can't possibly find them all, so someone will find them and justice will be served. First of all, says who? Second of all, what if it, like, rains - polaroids don't like that too much. Third of all, Our Hero has no way of knowing about the polaroids Ironside left at the scene, so where'd he get the idea? Fourth of all, after being beaten senseless and near death, Ironside goes for a stroll and finds all the polaroids anyway - so much for that plan! ...okay, that's enough to give you the flavor, with the additional note that there's no reason Ironside shouldn't just stroll in and shoot the guy in the head at his first opportunity. Only then there'd be no movie, would be the conventional response. In this case though, that would have been a positive thing!
Review of Killer Image
