The Kill Room movie storyline. Patrice, an art dealer, was in the midst of a tough period. With no art sales in sight, the chance that her gallery could go out of business was looming ever closer. Desperate to settle her debt with her drug supplier Nate, Patrice offered up a painting in its place.
This painting caught the attention of Nate’s boss, Gordon, who operates a criminal underworld from a Jewish bakery. Gordon saw the potential there to use Patrice’s gallery as a money laundering device since the value of art is highly subjective. Patrice, while clearly uncomfortable with the plan, reluctantly agreed. For the money laundering ruse to work properly, Gordon knew they would need more artwork.
To achieve this, he enlisted the help of Reggie, a professional assassin who goes by the alias “The Bagman”. What began as a desperate try to save her gallery quickly spiraled out of control. The artwork that Reggie produced brought a strange turn of events and caused quite a stir in the art world. Even though she was feeling the pressure from all sides, Patrice did her best to manage the situation.
The Kill Room is a 2023 American crime comedy thriller film directed by Nicol Paone and written by Jonathan Jacobson. It stars Uma Thurman, Joe Manganiello, Maya Hawke, Debi Mazar, Dree Hemingway, Samuel L. Jackson and Liv Morgan. The film was released by Shout! Studios on September 28, 2023.
Film Review for The Kill Room
Uma Thurman and Samuel L Jackson didn’t share any screen time in Pulp Fiction (though their paths crossed briefly in Kill Bill Vol 2) so this comic thriller can take credit for turning the Tarantino twosome into a double-act for the first time. Thurman plays Patrice, a highly strung, Adderall-snorting Manhattan gallery owner whose acquisitions haven’t exactly set the art world alight. Enter Gordon (Jackson), a Brooklyn bialy baker and underworld stooge who proposes funnelling mob money through her books as supposed payment for artworks.
Local hoodlum Reggie (Joe Manganiello) puts paintbrush to canvas to create these bogus masterpieces, which are credited to “the Bagman” since he suffocates his enemies with carrier bags. Unexpectedly, he becomes the toast of New York, making a killing in both senses and enraging his mafia paymasters in the process. There are shades of The Producers in the calamity of Reggie’s unforeseen success, as well as a hint of Bullets Over Broadway in the notion of a brute with hidden artistic flair, but Nicol Paone’s flat direction and Jonathan Jacobson’s listless screenplay leave the cast painting by numbers.
At least Thurman and Jackson clearly relish each other’s company. Thurman in particular gives good comic fatigue, such as when she encounters a pair of thugs outside her premises. “Nice gallery,” says one. “It’d be a shame if …” Rolling her eyes, she picks up the slack: “‘Something were to happen to it’? Really?” Menace her, by all means. Just don’t bore her.
Thurman’s real-life daughter Maya Hawke is also amusing as an indignant artist, though the charisma-free Manganiello has a habit of draining the life from the screen. Far better if Reggie had been played by Matthew Maher, who was so entertainingly volatile in last year’s Funny Pages and gets a few scenes here as Patrice’s nerdy drug dealer. But for art-world satire and genuine guffaws, Tony Hancock in The Rebel still knocks this whole thing into a cocked beret.
The Kill Room (2023)
Directed by: Nicol Paone
Starring: Uma Thurman, Joe Manganiello, Maya Hawke, Debi Mazar, Dree Hemingway, Samuel L. Jackson, Liv Morgan, Larry Pine, Matthew Maher, Amy Keum, Candy Buckley, Jennifer Kim, Tom Pecinka
Screenplay by: Jonathan Jacobson
Production Design by: Maite Perez-Nievas
Cinematography by: Bartosz Nalasek
Film Editing by: Gillian Hutshing
Costume Design by: Evren Catlin
Set Decoration by: Christina Barth
Art Direction by: Sonia Foltarz
Music by: Jessica Rose Weiss, Jason Soudah
MPAA Rating: R for pervasive language, violence, and drug use.
Distributed by: Shout! Studios
Release Date: September 28, 2023
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