The best way to describe “They Will Kill You” is as a live-action anime. People cleave bodies in two with superhuman strength while characters stumble about with propulsive verve; various sound effects accompany each of their telegraphed movements. Even the rain in director Kirill Sokolov’s film falls differently, with the mythological cascade of droplets casting a fog, akin to a cyberpunk opera.
Focusing on a woman who infiltrates a Satanic cult to save her sister, Sokolov delivers one of the most bonkers and madcap action films to ever come from the studio system. Gleefully violent and propelled by its own sense of whimsy, it’s a raucous joyride like no other. At the cost of trying to deliver vibes, it may lose some of the thematic weight that usually accompanies these kill-the-rich stories, but what it lacks in depth it more than makes up for with a thrilling sense of carnage. It’s a raucous joyride unlike any other.
You can practically feel Sokolov and co-writer Alex Litvak’s giddiness to get to the film’s set pieces in the way they speed through the table setting. That pace both works and hinders the film as a whole. We follow Asia Reaves (Zazie Beetz), who arrives at the Virgil Hotel under the guise of trying to rescue her sister, Maria (Myha’la), who she believes is working there. After being escorted to her room by Lily (Patricia Arquette), the superintendent of the Virgil, Asia barely gets a wink’s worth of sleep before her room is invaded by three masked assailants, played by Paterson Joseph, Tom Felton and Heather Graham. They’ve come with an infiltration mission of their own and seek to capture Asia to sacrifice her so that they might prolong their life. Unbeknownst to them, Asia, machete and shotgun in tow, is prepared, and won’t go down without a fight.
The fight sequence that follows between these four is undeniably the film’s standout set piece and is the best showcase for Sokolov’s and cinematographer Isaac Bauman’s wicked and creative tendencies to take center stage. Bauman loves shooting from perspectives we haven’t seen before, such as from a knife that gets hot potato-ed between various bodies, culminating with it being stabbed into Graham’s backside.
Sokolov ensures that no item goes unused in the fight, which gives it an unpredictability as to who might get bludgeoned or shot next (mattresses prove to be a surprising ally in brawls). While the film’s fights gradually expand from realistic to more fantastical, Sokolov doesn’t understand that the best action comes not just from mindless violence but when it’s rooted in a character’s desperation, that behind each hit and punch is a drive to survive and conquer the opposing force. He’s not afraid to put his heroine through the wringer, and Beetz as a performer deserves credit for taking the hits as much as she dishes them.
After Asia dispatches them, she learns that all of the guests and fellow service workers are part of the same cult, and that the fate of their own lives depends on her’s ending. What happens afterwards is a surprise best seen in the theater, but let’s say that the people Ari thought she killed don’t stay dead for long, and they’ve been endowed with abilities from the Man Downstairs.
If there’s a main fault, it’s that the film doesn’t do enough with its central setup. At the risk of making it seem like witnessing someone set cult members on fire with a flaming axe could get boring, once it’s established that the antagonists can’t die, the fights lose some of their drama. Beetz and Myha’la are compelling whenever they’re on-screen, but the film’s overreliance on flashbacks can undercut the momentum of its breakneck pace. There’s an attempt to contrast their present estrangement with how close they were in the past, but their drama feels too expedited to make an impact.
There’s some vague signaling at deeper themes as well, such as how all of the help employed at the Virgil are people of color, but these are given such cursory airtime as to not make the quest for vengeance feel as cathartic. While we’re given much to root for with Asia and when Maria comes into the fray, the contours of the cult’s machinations aren’t fully fleshed out. If we understood with more specificity the nature of the evil Asia was fighting, it could have felt more righteous than just entertaining.
“They Will Kill You” was not the first movie to premiere at SXSW that featured cults, nor the only one to have characters who have to fight their way out of a sprawling mansion. What sets this one apart (and many movies of this prescient genre) is its sense of play. It’s been a long time since studio movies were able to feel this zany, and it’s refreshing that Sokolov borrows the tactic of “Yes, and” to heart as he finds new horrors for Asia and Maria to fight.
Undoubtedly, with the film’s histrionic flashes, from blood spurts to a climactic setting taking place in the snow, people may draw comparisons to Quentin Tarantino’s “Kill Bill” films or Toshiya Fujita’s “Lady Snowblood.” I won’t deny those comparisons, but it also feels a disservice all the same when Beetz embodies such a singular ferocity that feels wholly original. As she slashes and shoots her way to the top floor of Hell, comparisons to others will soon fade away. We witness a rare gift: that of an actor transforming, before our very eyes, earning her stripes in the action hero pantheon in real time. Indeed, Beetz’s Asia Reeves will be the only name you’ll be thinking of when the credits roll.
“They Will Kill You” opens exclusively in theaters on April 24
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