KILL RATIO – Review

Review by Stephen Tronicek

Kill Ratio is a poorly conceived Die Hard power fantasy that at moments finds itself looking fine, and being hilariously ridiculous. Seriously, if you want to see a Russian coup happen in a hotel that ends with an unbelievably apathetic hero fighting an old man with a sword, well then this movie is in fact for you, but Kill Ratio is too bland to be for anyone else.

Have you heard this story? A violent series of events has put a president (oddly not American in how nationalistic this movie is) in danger and it’s up to one man to fight his way through a couple of armed violent henchmen to save the president. So it’s Die Hard, Olympus Has Fallen, and White House Down, and it’s nowhere near as entertaining as two of those happen to be.

The problem is mainly with the protagonist, and with the villains. “Fixer” James Henderson is a misogynist jerk, who at times is noble, but is often portrayed as an overly violent, invincible fighting machine. This is the type of role that through the eyes of a shlock master like Paul Verhoeven, could most likely work (Michael Douglas wasn’t the nicest of people in Basic Instinct), but through an almost ugly tone Henderson simply seems unsympathetic and mean spirited person. Tom Hopper, the actor portraying Henderson, is quite an engaging presence, and he thankfully gives Henderson moments of levity and humanity, but these aren’t enough to save the character. The other actors, while not always great, know what type of movie they’re in. Nick Dunning is fun as General Lazar, a man who insists on fighting people with swords, and all of the mindless henchmen wearing black ski masks look like something out of a Metal Gear game, which at least has a little bit of novelty to it. As far as the women characters, well they’re apparently mostly just there to almost get raped by the henchmen—a horrible wrinkle to this work.

The one upside is that while it’s cut around to the point of being almost incoherent, the action does present some ironically fun situations, with the aforementioned sword fight being the real highlight of the piece. The film also takes advantage of hallway shots which do contain a nice level of depth of the playing field the action plays out in. Some nicely produced music does wonders with dramatic scenes as well, bringing them up to a state of feeling like a serious film.

Kill Ratio is unfortunately just another Die Hard clone that doesn’t really work. It’s quite funny at times, but since that clearly wasn’t the intention, it’s hard to figure out whether or not that’s a compliment.

XLrator Media Will be releasing the action film KILL RATIO in Theaters on December 9th and on VOD and iTunes on December 13th.