Showing posts with label archaeology. Show all posts
Showing posts with label archaeology. Show all posts

"Killer Heat": Modern film noir set on Crete, with 1940s cliches and gay teases but no Minoan ruins

 


I haven't done a movie review in a long time, mostly because it's hard to find one that doesn't begin with "after the death of his wife" or "to win the girl of his dreams."  But the Killer Heat trailer showed two muscular guys, no semi-nude ladies, and no boy-girl kissing.  That's good enough for me.

Scene 1: The gams of a hot guy, Richard Madden, climbing a mountain.  His hands, legs, biceps, face, as gumshoe Nick Bali, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, tells us about Icarus, who flew too close to the sun.  Suddenly Hot Guy falls to his death!

Cut to his funeral procession in a Greek village. Newspaper headline: he was Leo Vardakis, son of the ultra-rich Vardakis family.


Scene 2:
On an airplane, Bali mourns -- maybe he was the guy's boyfriend -- and continues to think about Icarus: "That's the thing about myths.  Easy to ignore." 

Back story: The Vardakis family ran the island of Crete through violence and extortion.  He has an awful haircut and a stupid panama hat. Hetero. 

A Broad with Legs Down To Here meets him at the airport.  Yes, he mentions them.   After a few minutes devoted to flirting and describing her eyes and...gams...we learn that she is Mrs. Vardakis, sister-in-law of the dead guy, and his death was...drum roll, please...NO ACCIDENT!  But no one will investigate because the optics are bad for the Vardakis stockholders.

"But why pay for an investigation that will cause your family to hate you?"

"Leo was my friend."  Oh, so Leo was gay.  More room for you to move in, Balky Buddy


Scene 3:
  Baldy follows The Broad up the narrow, curving roads and onto a dirt road to a ramshackle...monastery?  You're not going to get any skirts that way, Jackson.  But maybe one of the monks are hot.

Left: Joseph Gordon-Levitt butt.

Esconced in his cell -- um, room -- Baldur umpacks his stuff, and tries to drink enough to black out -- don't you have falling-in-love to do?  Oh, he flashes back to his dead wife and kid.  There's always a dead wife, but the kid is a less overdone angle.  

Guess whether it's a boy or a girl.  Yep, of course.


Scene 4: 
 Down in the village, Bulky bribes a cop to see the police file.  Wait -- if it was an accident, why is there a police file?  Injuries consistent with falling off a mountain.  But his fingers were broken, as if he was trying to hang on.

Next he interviews the arresting officer, Georges Mensah, played by Babou Ceesay, and his little dog, too. Great name, and nice bulge.  Dude is hostile and suspicious, moreso when Bummer points out that he was taking photos at the funeral.

We get a rundown of the family. Hey, Leo had a twin brother, Elias!  He's the one with the "perfect wife" that Balfour is in love with.  "Every couple is unhappy in its own way," he says, "But who was unhappy with Leo?"  Some guys are single?

More after the break