This review is based on a screening from the SXSW Film & TV Festival. They Will Kill You opens in theaters March 27.
Kirill Sokolov’s terrific They Will Kill You, a modern action gem whose stellar fight sequences are brought to life with kinetic stunt performances and captivating camerawork, is the year’s best action discovery thus far.
It’s an unabashedly gonzo, gruesome, and gutsy reminder of what truly great mainstream action cinema can feel like when it’s willing to take some bigger swings. Much like Sokolov’s previous work – especially the excellent 2018 film, Why Don’t You Just Die! – it’s got a bold mean streak that sees characters being eviscerated in wildly inventive ways just as it ends up finding more of a surprisingly emotional heart hidden underneath all the bloody viscera it throws at the wall. It’s a film that’s clearly reverential of both Kill Bill and what that was drawing from, just as it carves out its own territory by injecting a more familiar set-up with a joyous jolt of satanic supernatural horror pulp. Perhaps most importantly, it also marks the arrival of a new action star in lead Zazie Beetz.
Though Beetz is no stranger to action movies, having appeared in everything from Deadpool 2 to Bullet Train, Sokolov’s film is a very well-crafted one that lets her cook rather than merely play second fiddle to often lesser leads. And my goodness, is she absolutely cooking with gas here! She’s got charisma and presence to spare, believably playing cool under pressure as her character, the wonderfully ruthless Asia, does battle with hordes of enemies all set on killing her when she takes a new job at a building hiding dangerous secrets on every floor. At the same time, we feel her authentic fear and vulnerability, ensuring that alongside all her action prowess, Beetz makes the stakes of the experience hit home. She’s an action star with the range to be a graceful force of destruction and also deeply, profoundly human as she scrambles to survive. She also makes us feel the pain of every hit she takes just as we do the thrill of seeing her turn the tables and dish it out as good as she takes it. Beetz grounds the film just as she leaps through the air like she’s in RRR to rain down death with a fiery axe upon all the fools who dare stand in her way.
The reason they’re standing in her way requires being a little vague to preserve the film’s many joyously macabre surprises, but let’s just say that They Will Kill You is like the recent Ready or Not – madcap and bloody. It also sharply taps into the anxieties about how much the world is governed by the wealthy consuming all those underneath them. Even when the film doesn’t end up saying much about this state of affairs, the way it literally skewers these same elites in increasingly inventive ways is good old-fashioned fun. The creative ways scenes are shot, with many hallway sequences recalling the memorable fight scene from Oldboy, make it all that much more exciting and energizing. Even when the story can start to stall out a bit and twist itself into knots, the camera always feels alive in how it dances its way into the next bone-crushing and graceful balletic sequence. This is an action film that makes full use of the visual language of cinema and looks damn good while doing it. It’s not for the squeamish, but for those with a strong stomach, it’s a film that will have you eatin’ good.
This all begins with a grim flashback in the rain, where Asia is attempting to escape her abusive father with her younger sister. They’re caught, and Asia flees in fear, leaving her sister behind. It’s a bit rushed, but this is all just to set up what comes next. We then jump forward in time, and fresh off of a stint in prison that made her into an action juggernaut, Asia has taken a job working at the Virgil, a massive apartment building in New York City. The setting recalls the action classic, The Raid, in how you can already feel the film is going to be about her battling through all of them. There are many signs that this place is bad news, including a warning written in steam on her bedroom mirror that Asia doesn’t see in time before it fades. Before she can even get started, she’s attacked in her sleep; it’s a grave mistake that her attackers will soon wish they’d never made.
Right out of the gate, this opening action scene is already an outstanding one as it sees the camera and characters dance around the room with vibrant, visceral flair, just as they all maintain a fluid clarity in their movements. Where other American movies often dull the impact of their action with sloppy camerawork and haphazard cuts, They Will Kill You shows all of them how it’s done. Everything from the choreography to the editing makes you lean forward in your seat so as not to miss a single moment of the bloody glory that’s unfolding before you. It’s electrifying action cinema where bodies and limbs fly all over, making clear that this film is not messing around. A gleeful twist revealing how Asia, even with all of her skills as a fighter, will have her work cut out for her, further ensures that you’re completely strapped in for a ride that only gets more wonderfully, violently ridiculous from that point on.
After this high-octane action opener, there are some moments where the film slows down just a bit and threatens to meander. However, there are still plenty of clever jokes and well-shot sequences to keep you engaged, including a magnificent recurring bit with Asia having to flee through the vents of the building and an eyeball. It’s all part of how the film – which Sokolov wrote with co-writer Alex Litvak – never takes itself too seriously and is all the better for it. It’s poking fun while also never skimping on the action fundamentals that grab you by the throat and do not let go. When we then get the aforementioned scene of Asia making use of an axe ablaze, Beetz brings just as much of a spark to the scene as the literal flames she is swinging about; she and the film are firing on all cylinders.
This extends to the showstopping finale, where Sokolov hams it up a bit on the horror, including what feels like either an element of the classic story, Lord of the Flies, or something ripped from a horror anime coming to galaxy-brained demonic life. At the same time, Beetz also kicks everything up a notch, fully embodying all the righteous rage about the nightmare Asia has had to endure over the course of the film and channeling it into one final action sequence. It’s no wonder that they wanted to kill her; as the cool kids say, her smoke is too tough, her swag too different. In the end, both Beetz and Sokolov see through all of the potential they’d been building up to with a fitting escalation that comes just at the right time and makes Asia into an even more unstoppable force of nature. It’s still quite scrappy, though that only makes it all that much more glorious to see it take one more big swing to knock some skulls – and the finale – out of the park.
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