Kiss or Kill 

Search for this title on DVD or VHS at Amazon.com.

Billed as an "Australian Bonnie and Clyde for the '90s," this quirky, intense film from director Bill Bennett ("Two If By Sea") is a close approximation of the 1967 classic. Instead of early 20th century America, Bennett's landscape is the desolate basin of Western Australia, a film noir ironically set under the pounding desert sun.

Matt Day and Frances O'Connor (last seen in the vastly underappreciated "Love and Other Catastrophes") have a good scam going—she seduces wealthy, married businessmen, drugs them in their sleep, while he comes in to scoot off the loot. This last time, however, she unintentionally—or perhaps intentionally—gives a client too much drug, and he lies dead in a hotel, his only possession a videotape that depicts some lascivious acts from a national football legend. Escaping into the desert, the two of them embark on a journey into their own deepest secrets, all the while being chased by the football player, the cops, and a mysterious old gentlemen that seems to leave death in his wake.

Very slow-going in the outset, you gotta stick with "Kiss or Kill"—it's a gradual seduction process. Bennett's theme pervades the film beautifully—do any of us really know each other? Can two people in love for years still be strangers? With a great ending for their desperately aching romance, "Kiss or Kill" is a meaty Aussie treat.

—Ian Williams

Return to Ian's movie reviews.