Love and a Bullet (2002)

Directors:

Kantz
Ben Ramsey

Writers (WGA):

Ben Ramsey (written by) &
Kantz (written by)

Genre:

Action | Crime

Tagline:

Nobody's So Good At Being So Bad.

Plot:

A hitman falls in love with the boss's girlfriend, who may just be his next target.

Cast

Anthony 'Treach' Criss	...	Malik Bishop (as Treach)
Kent King	...	Cynda Griffie (as Kent Masters-King)
Charles Guardino	...	Damien Wiles
Shireen Crutchfield	...	Hylene
Sam Scarber	...	Buddy
Walter Jones	...	Cisco
James Black	...	Vaughn
Parris Washington	...	Sala (as Paris Washington)
Mark Hicks	...	Omar
Marlon Young	...	Wade
Hakeem Dunn	...	Young Bishop
Freez Luv	...	Frenchy
Derek Mears	...	The Milkman
Mushond Lee	...	Pretty Nate
Tren'l	...	Shah

MPAA:

Rated R for strong violence, language and sexuality/nudity.

Runtime:

85 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital | SDDS

Certification:

Brazil:18 | USA:R (certificate #38507) | Iceland:16 | Belgium:KNT (re-rating) | Finland:K-15 | Argentina:13 | Australia:MA (cable rating) | Belgium:16 | Germany:18 | Norway:15 | UK:15

Filming Locations:

Los Angeles, California, USA

Company:

Key Entertainment

Quotes:

[first lines]
Malik Bishop: [narrating] When I was ten, my father put a bullet in my mother's heart, rattled off some cryptic shit about the rent bein' due, and then he put a slug in his own head. With that level of Jackson-family-on-crack-type dysfunction, it's no wonder I turned out the way I did.

Movie Connections:

References The Pelican Brief (1993)

Soundtrack:

She Wants to Be With Me

comic noir

Kantz and Ramsey also put together "The Big Hit", which I disliked so much, I demanded my money back from the video store. But I admit that there is something appealing about this one.

The film is an attempt to do comic noir, and is definitely of a flavor similar to that of Tarantino's films and of the British neo-noir.

The problem such films have is one of bad taste - it's difficult to know when killing and hurting people can be made amusing, and when it just hurts and laughing at it is stepping close to something profoundly unhealthy.

However, "Love and a Bullet" only crosses that line a couple of times; and I think much of the appeal of the film comes out of the performance of Treach, who is right on the money throughout. Some of the dialog is over much, and more could have been done with less - although I admit that for a film put together for half-a-million in 2002, this really looks well-made. But I really mean less in the story and in the dialog, which goes over the top once too often to suit me.

But on the whole, an entertaining Post-Modern crime comedy of the 'outre' variety.