Outback thriller

Kiss or Kill
Directed by Bill Bennett
With Frances O'Connor, Matt Day, Chris Haywood, Barry Otto
Sydney Film Festival

Review by Brendan Doyle

Slick as an inner-city haircut, this thriller road movie has a plot with as many twists and turns as a politician's promises.

Bill Bennett, whose previous films include Backlash, Jilted, Mortgage and Spider and Rose, says he spent 10 years writing the script for a film about how little you can actually know someone, threw away the 20 drafts and started again.

Kiss or Kill is a thriller set in the outback, on the road between Adelaide and Perth, with unsettling, almost surreal overtones. And it's very funny in parts.

Nikki (Frances O'Connor) and Al (Matt Day) have to leave the city in a hurry after a scam goes horribly wrong. Two detectives go after them, as well as a famous footballer, Zipper Doyle, who wants an incriminating videotape they're carrying.

Their troubles only get worse on the road. Everywhere they stop for the night, people end up dead, and the runaway couple begin to suspect each other.

The result is a tense, slightly wacky, intriguing film noir that includes fine performances from the leads and Barry Otto as the wild card who turns up in the desert. Original, scary and fun.

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