Film Scouts Reviews: Kiss or Kill

Nikki is a saucy brunette who hates men, with one obvious exception: she digs Al, her good-looking partner in crime. Working as a team, they rip off businessmen in fancy hotels - until one of their marks winds up dead. Worse still, a local sports hero, who's aptly named Zipper Doyle, thinks they have a tape that would destroy his career. So, taking their cue from Bonnie and Cylde and countless other movie outlaws, Nikki and Al head for the lonesome road in Bill Bennett's scrappy but ultimately disappointing take on film noir. They meet the usual assortment of Australian oddballs - a spooky motel owner who carries big knife, and a kindly gent who lives on a former nuclear testing site. There's no one they can trust, not even each other. Best scene? a funny bit of improvisation in which one of the pursuing detectives tries to explain to his partner his sudden refusal to eat bacon.

Still, despite such stylistic perks as jump cuts, the film tends to lurch along without ever engaging the audience's interest.

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"Kiss or Kill"

by Kathleen Carroll