Holy shit! This is a brutal film with an exclamation mark. Drenched in blood,
body parts, mutilated flesh, dead stuffed into every nook and cranny, madness
and cruelty. By the end the apartment in which nearly the entire film takes
place is like a Jackson Pollock mural painted in dripping blood. It is 90
straight minutes of violence and survival. I had no idea what I was going
into other than it starred Salma Hayek who I have gone far too long without
seeing and it was an action film. A slight under statement. I was curious
to see what folks thought of this. Mainly I saw people hating on it. Excessive,
Disgusting. Vile. Bottom of the barrel Tarantino. Ya maybe and maybe I missed
the point but this just struck me as a very black comedy and an intentional
exercise in excess. I broke out laughing a bunch of times. At horrible things
for sure but so over the top that it had to be meant to be funny. I think.
Am I a bad person? Possible but I could watch this sort of thing without
a qualm as opposed to the horror torture films that were all the fashion
a few years ago. You could not pay me to watch those. Well, for less
than $100 anyways. I noticed that this was made in the same year as John
Wick. A good year for squib makers.
I need to remind myself to always have a gun hidden in my toilet in case
I have to come out and shoot five guys dead before they have time to light
a cigarette. Which is what our girl Salma does. One shot each. Head or gut.
She is a prostitute for the Yakuza - working for a guy named Taiko. She has
somehow broken the rules and he sends over these guys to gang rape her. They
do (before the film begins). She excuses herself to go to the bathroom to
clean up. She sure does. But this is the Yakuza and Taiko keeps sending men
over to take care of her. And other prostitutes in this building full of
them to kill her. Her apartment is a frigging armory with machine guns, shot
guns, hand grenades, revolvers - am surprised the NRA hasn't put their
good stamp of approval on this film. She knew this day was coming.
She gets shot, stabbed, beaten up, put in a sadist cage - but she just keeps
ticking. They send a guy with a killer dog. Hello hand grenade. A sadist
with his Kabuki thugs - that was very cool - and funny, guys rappelling into
her room. She kills them all. And it's Salma Hayak who I fell in love with
in Desperado so many years ago. I need to re-visit that one. Do a body count
comparison. I wonder what made her take this on? Salma you get to kill
lots of scumsucker men. In so many different ways. Ok. The film was shot
in Serbia. I guess if it is all in one room, you could shoot it anywhere.
I just wish I had seen this with an audience on the old 42nd Street. That
would have been so much fun. There should have been a sequel in which Everly
travels to Japan and kills more Yakuza as she carries her baby on her back
but no such luck.
