
In “Killer Heat”, the writer-director Philippe Lacôte takes The Jealousy Man, a short story by the writer Jo Nesbø, to create an old-style crime movie featuring an original hard-boiled gentleman detective, a deadly woman, a voice-over from a bitter character with mixed morals, and of course a murder or several. In fact, it is a rather standard adaptation from Roberto Bentivegna and Matt Charman that adds nothing innovative to the tradition of classic noir. However, it manages to reproduce many elements that make these films so enjoyable.
In “Killer Heat” Joseph Gordon-Levitt plays the film noir appropriate Nick Bali (a very film noir appropriate name). He is our unshaven gumshoe and wears a tan Panama hat that hides his overgrown curly hair. As a gumshoe, the bottom line is that Nick smokes and drinks which in all likelihood means that every room will be infused with the smell of whiskey before he steps in. However, what he has are instincts that are sharpened, a high ability of the mind to work like a camera, and an obsession for detail. Intellect, on the other hand, is precisely what makes him such a competent investigator.
Nick comes to the island of Crete at the behest of Penelope Vardakis (Shailene Woodley) who belongs to a wealthy and powerful family that controls the island through violence and corruption. Only recently did Penelope’s brother-in-law Leo (Richard Madden) die in a professional free solo climb on a cliff in the area. The local authorities (who are sponsored by the Vardakis family) were quick to perform an investigation and classify the case as an accident. However, Penny isn’t so sure about that. This is why she hires Nick in secret so that he can investigate the circumstances of the incident.
There is no suspense before we start meeting some of the main characters in the mystery through Nick’s detective work. The first is Elias (Richard Madden, again), Penelope’s spouse and Leo’s twin brother. There’s also the family’s matriarch, Audrey (Clare Holman), a member of the Vardakis family. And there’s a potentially untrustworthy policeman, Georges (Babou Ceesay). Certainly, there are many more pieces to the puzzle that I shan’t reveal, but they are nicely integrated into Bentivegna and Charman’s script.
Already raising the stakes in this regard is the mystery itself, as the plot throws enough curveballs along the way to keep things exciting as pacing guarantees we are never slowed down enough to overthink things. Such delicate matters are mixed in with some of Lacôte\’s clearer images of the past. They furnished information that was lacking about the miserable days of the Vardakis clan as well as provided Nick’s own badly battered past. Tossed together everything fits into rather active crime fiction though not very original. When the bombshells do finally come, no one really jumps out at us.
The film certainly has that look with Lacôte and DP Andrew Dunn doing most of the filming on location in Sunlit Crete, “Killer Heat” definitely has that scope. It surely possesses the actors as well with Gordon-Levitt playing a decent enough gumshoe and Woodley a rather fiery femme fatal. The most over-the-top aspects of the stories they portray make them more archetypes than three-dimensional figures so that one can understand more of the standing. The performances though are good throughout.
One thing that this old-fashioned film noir does not have is that old-fashioned suspense. There are glimpses of it every now and then, for example when Nick starts overstaying his welcome. But the temperature never gets higher than lukewarm and the mystery stays on the sideline where it belongs. And even though jealousy is a recurring theme overlooked later on, the message seems to be lost in the connection of the dots and ticking the boxes. Having said that, the film is a good watch from beginning to end in its brisk 90-minute running time, and with JGL on the Greek Isles, you can do much worse. “Killer Heat” is now available to stream on Prime Video.
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