THE PLOT THUS FAR
While protecting a crime boss’s home in the Carpathian Mountains, a contract killer and his old friend get into a dangerous situation when the boss’s wife is accidentally killed.
WHAT WE THOUGHT
Walter, a sub-par hit man, is summoned to a remote mountain lodge to work for a crime boss who had disappeared from the scene several years before. Walter’s colleague and fellow hit man turns out to be an old acquaintance, Mickey, who has his own history of botched jobs and brushes with death. The action is a sustained, deliberate adrenaline rush that eschews the cut-happy editing blitz of most dark comedies about the criminal underworld.
This isolated and haunted place creates an on-going tension, enhances the plot and emphasizes the struggle of the characters who have to use their wits to survive each day. While I never heard of this film before, I had some of our international readers describe it as being in the vein of a Coen Brothers movie. While I picked up more on the McDonaugh influence than Coen, it’s still quite a solid movie.
The DVD comes with a making-of featurette and trailer. The German audio track is a hardy Dolby mix that powers all of the channels. The transfer handles the white scale well, but I would’ve loved to have seen an HD master. Still, it works for what it is. In the end, I’d recommend a purchase.
RELEASE DATE: 09/25/2012
