Not every good picture is a long picture. Not every small picture ought to be overlooked. Cult Killer, from Saban Films, directed by Jon Keeyes, and starring Antonio Banderas and Alice Eve, is a jolt of fun; dark, twisty in unexpected ways, and (thanks in part to its filming location) properly Irish.
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Let’s talk about Cult Killer
Alice Eve stars as Cassie, a young woman reeling from the death of her mentor, Mikhail (Antonio Banderas, who appears in the film mainly in flashbacks). She soon learns the killer, Jamie (Shelley Hennig), has far more justified motives than what she might have first supposed — and that’s where we’ll leave you, as far as spoilers go, because there’s a lot in this move we’d like you to go in unspoiled for.
The cast is game, and up to the task of playing the dark nature of this film out. Banderas, although the majority of his scenes are all within the same location and with the same scene partner, is a joy to watch as he animates Mikhail, this trusted protector of Cassie, as she learns to do the job he plucked her out of a metaphorical ditch to do. Eve displays all of Cassie’s own troubled past on her own face, so that even as she explains the sort of abuse she endured as a child, we already know, and can tell, and root for her to succeed in what her quest eventually becomes.
Shelley Hennig was a delight
Shelley Hennig, as Jamie, has a lot of fun with the more darkly-humorous aspects of her character, as she rampages through the back half of the film, causing mayhem to… but, again, we probably don’t want to reveal too much. Although Eve and Hennig don’t appear together in scenes much in the film, their phone conversations, artfully splitscreened by director Jon Keeyes, are central to the plot, and a gem to watch as these two women verbally spar with each other, testing how far each can truly trust the other.
But I fear I’ve taken you to the brink, already. I really don’t want to spoil much more.
