To Kill a Man (2014) New Directors New Films 2014

Word to all filmmakers- just because you've got a script that can be touted as based on a true story, it doesn't mean that you should take the time to make the movie. I say this because To Kill a Man closes with the statement that this is based on a true story, and all I wanted to know was why we were being told this story this way.

The film follows tells the story of a man whose family is tormented by a big mountain of a man who is also a bully. Stealing the man's insulin and cellphone one night , the man's son goes to buy it back and is shot for his trouble. The father witnesses the shooting and is horrified. The bully then shoots himself so he can claim self defense. A year and a half later the bully is out of jail and tormenting the family. Unfortunately the police and prosecutors don't do anything to help them. When his daughter in molested our hero can no longer stand by and let things go.

A simple story blandly handled. There is nothing really wrong with the film other than its all a foregone conclusion, the title tells us what happened. Yea the last 20 minutes play out notquite as we expect, the rest of it does with the good people good, the bad people bad and the officials useless. I get that. I get what it's getting at, hell I work in the criminal justice system so I see how things can play out, but did everything have to be so clear cut? I mean things are so clear cut that I walked out of the film for about ten minutes to go to the bathroom and the refreshment stand and when I came back I hadn't missed a thing.

Its not bad film, nor is it a story that doesn't need to be told, rather its an okay film with a story that needs to be  told better.

(And one thing that really bothered me is that our hero is supposed to be a woodsman and yet the way he handles an ax and moves through the forest says its not a natural thing for him to be doing)