Director: Kirill Sokolov
Writers: Russell Ackerman, Cheryl Eatock, Carl Hampe
Stars: Zazie Beetz, Patricia Arquette, Heather Graham
Synopsis: A woman takes a job as a housekeeper in a NYC high-rise, unaware of the building’s history of disappearances. She soon realizes the community is shrouded in mystery.
Having conversations with my peers about what we’re watching is a weekly thing for me. I love learning about movies and shows that I’ve never heard of and I instantly put them on a watchlist. The new action-comedy-thriller They Will Kill You is definitely one of those movies that most people will want to put on their watchlists just off of the cast alone. I only watched one trailer because I have a rule about not watching more than one trailer of a movie that I am really anticipating going to see. Zazie Beetz is an actress that is known for both her comedic and dramatic talents. Her only other action film was Deadpool 2 where she played Domino. I am glad that she pivoted back into action films after her long hiatus. She put on a good performance that was exhilarating and full of anger.
In the film, Beetz plays a woman named Asia Reeves. When we first meet her she’s on the run with her little sister Maria from their abusive father. After stopping to cool down and get supplies, they’re spotted by their father. In the middle of a standoff between Asia, Maria, and their father, Asia shoots her father in the chest to keep him away from them. Once the police officers get to the scene, her reaction is to run and never look back. Leaving Maria was a tough thing to do and she paid the price for her one mistake. Asia was sentenced to 10 years in prison for the attempted murder of father and Maria was sent back to live with him. Flash forward to the present, Asia gets out of prison and she only has two things on her to-do list, finding her sister and making sure that she’s safe.
Asia goes to a local high rise apartment building called Virgil that’s in need of a new housekeeper. She’s greeted by Lilith Woodhouse, the building superintendent played by Patricia Arquette. Lilith seems welcoming and accommodating towards Asia but she keeps her guard up for the whole time that she’s there. The lights go out and our protagonist is sound asleep in her bed until some unwanted guests raid her room with the intent to beat her and capture her. In this scene we see Zazie play the total opposite of a lot of characters that she’s played before. She’s a shotgun wielding, katana cutting, bare knuckle scrapper. This action sequence is well choreographed, bloody, and the editing, from Luke Doolan, is similar in style to Tarantino’s films. After she mows through the group of people, the look of exhaustion and determination are still on her face. Feeling accomplished, she talks to Lilith like half of her journey is complete when in fact it’s only just begun. Lilith gives Asia the run down on the building, its origins, and the state of its longtime residents. The residents that occupy the building can’t die because the building has a satanic presence over it. Everyone that comes into the building is sacrificed to the devil and in return they have to stay in the building and be immortal.
The supporting cast features Heather Graham and Tom Felton (two of the Virgil’s longtime tenants and Asia’s new adversaries), who give the audience some laughs and characters to root against while Asia’s sister Maria (Myha’la) isn’t given much to do once we are introduced to her. The action sequences are bonkers and exciting, but aside from Asia and Lilith the characters in this film are underwritten and they have sight gags that have been seen in older films. Heather Graham’s character has a bit that has to do with her head. I’ve seen it done better in Beetlejuice and Men in Black. Even given the time difference, those films also managed the special effects in a superior way. I wanted to be invested in Asia and Maria’s relationship but their dialogue is really wooden and the emotional beats or lack thereof didn’t do anything for me.
As the film coasts towards the third act, it slows down. They only focus on four characters and two of them don’t get proper development. Usually a short run time like an hour and thirty minutes is a sweet spot for me. But in this case, given the lack of character development and story building, it wasn’t enough for me to like the movie as much as I wanted to. Director Kirill Sokolov gives the audience satisfying action and fun performances from Beetz, Arquette, Graham, and Felton but after the credits rolled I knew that I wanted to try to watch Ready or Not 2. Hopefully the Blu-ray release will offer a decent amount of deleted scenes and a commentary track with Sokolov and some of the cast to fill in the gaps.
