Essential Killing2010
Essential Killing (2010)
Essential Killing Photos
Movie Info
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Cast
as Mohammed
as Margaret
as Helicopter Pilot
as Helicopter Pilot

as American Contractor

as American Contractor

as Interrogating Officer

as Soldier in SUV

as Woman on Bicycle

as Ukranian Logger
Critic Reviews for Essential Killing
All Critics (36) | Top Critics (5) | Fresh (30) | Rotten (6) | DVD (3)
Under the guise of current events, Skolimowski artfully conjures an elemental archetype of human life itself. In English, Polish, and Arabic.

Stripped of its political vestments, Essential Killing is a chase film almost existential in its rawness and virtually silent in its unfolding -- just a pursued man reduced by circumstance to a primitive state.

View it as an existential thriller illustrating how violence begets violence.
Delivering an absolute minimum of context, the film dares us to forge our own reasons for rooting for or despising this savage.

The movie deftly shifts from its initial chase thriller mode to a grueling, offbeat tale of human survival.

Maybe the only failing of Essential Killing is that everything in it is seen so sufficiently that one doesn't feel the need to go back to watch it another time (unlike most great films, which improve on repeated viewings).
Audience Reviews for Essential Killing
The meditative, subversive and provocative thriller, "Essential Killing," is about the hunt for a suspected terrorist(Vincent Gallo), told almost entirely from his point of view. Except like in real life and the movie, things are not so simple. We first see him in a cave, trembling before killing two American contractors(Zach Cohen & Iftach Ophir) and their escort, who are there off-book and quite possibly involved in drug smuggling, in order to escape. Soon after this, he is captured and processed at an airbase and cleaned up. He is shouted at by an American officer(David Price) and might answer if not for all the ringing in his ears from the explosion. All of which resembles a production line more than anything else.(This is not the only time the movie references "Brave New World" by the way.) Since the waterboarding produces no results, he is shipped with others to Poland. In any case, this makes for a poor first impression. His escape into the snowy wilderness occurs when the army convoy comes across a literal pack of road hogs, causing the truck he is in to go over the side of the road and overturning. At which point, the conflict becomes less man vs. man than man vs. nature, as the former prisoner makes a bid to live off the land like the hunters and fishermen he sees with one extreme example thrown in for good measure.(Considering how much he seems to know about the flora, it would probably come as no surprise that he has done some hunting himself.) At the same time, we get glimpses of a past, happier existence.

Super Reviewer
Sometimes visually striking, virtually dialogue free piece with some memorable moments and a committed, if over-egged, performance from Vincent Gallo. The symbolism becomes wearying however, and Jerry Skolimowski doesn't have the even hand of Gus Van Sant's "Gerry" or Terrence Malick's "The Thin Red Line", which explore similar themes.
Super Reviewer
Even if not original and proving to be a wearing experience, this visceral film deserves credit for being almost without dialogue - and Gallo does a good job as a desperate man struggling for survival in an inhospitable place, while the locations highlight well his isolation.
Super Reviewer
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