Bullet Points: Kill Kane

Vinnie Jones (Born Vincent Peter Jones in Watford, England on January 5, 1965) first made a name for himself on this big blue marble we call planet Earth as a professional footballer in the English Football League. Jones had the reputation of being one of soccer’s hard men and it is that reputation that helped him start a second career in the movie industry when his days on the field were over.

Jones’ first movie role would be in Guy Ritchie’s critically acclaimed Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels. From there Jones would make his first movie stateside as a supporting player in the Nicolas Cage vehicle Gone in Sixty Seconds. After that Vinnie never looked back and he has gone on to become one of the busiest actors in the world.

In this edition of Bullet Points, I’ll take a look at one of Jones’ more recent releases, a vigilante flick titled Kill Kane.

• The Premise: Vinnie Jones plays Ray Brookes, a man who is leading a regular life. Ray is a phys ed teacher, he has wife named Kim and they have two teenage children, Max and Victoria. One night, Ray and his wife are driving home when their GPS takes them off course and the couple is lost. Ray, frustrated by the technology, decides he’s going to kick it old school and use an actual map to navigate his way back to the Brookes residence. The seldom used map is in the trunk of their car, so Ray steps outside the car to retrieve the map… but Ray hears something that has him curious, so he walks over to see what the commotion is and he gets more than he ever bargained for. He sees mobster Frank Noonan execute a man, while his minions Billy, Connor and Kane look on. As if witnessing something so graphic wasn’t bad enough, the bad guys notice that Ray noticed. They get Ray’s licence plate number and it isn’t long before they are paying the Brookes family a visit.

• The Catalyst: Through flashbacks we relive the terrifying night that changed Ray Brookes’ life forever. The night that Kane, Billy and Connor showed up at the Brookes house to silence Ray and protect their boss. These flashback scenes really made the movie seem drawn out, which I didn’t think was possible given the 77 minute runtime. I can’t imagine that the three villains in this scenario had any other goal than to murder the entire Brookes family, so why they dragged the whole process out was a bit puzzling. But they eventually put bullets in the heads of Kim, Max and Victoria Brookes and then to cap it all off they shoot Ray in the chest. Presumably they’ve murdered the entire Brookes clan… but Ray survived.

• The Vigilante: As the movie opens Ray is coming out of a three month coma. It isn’t long before the police are on the scene asking Ray questions about the night he was shot and his family was murdered. Ray is not cooperative with the police and states his lack of faith in the British justice system, you know right then and there this man plans on taking the law into his own hands. And take it into his hands he does, first he targets the drug using fiend Billy, then he goes after Connor, then all he has left to do is kill Kane. (DING!)

Watching Ray transform from your common every day guy to cold blooded killer was reminiscent to the Paul Kersey transformation in the original Death Wish and watching him systematically take out the men who killed Ray’s loved ones was reminiscent of Death Wish 2. But unlike the Death Wish series of films, Kill Kane kept itself based more in reality. We did not get an over the top vigilante story. I’m sure this more reality based approach was partially by design and partially by necessity as this was a film that was quite obviously made on a small budget, this is not a knock on the film, but merely a fact.

Word to the wise, if you are looking for Ray to start taking out his foes with exploding soccer balls, flame throwers or rocket launchers then you will be greatly disappointed. Also this one is more of a crime thriller than it is a straight action piece, so the pacing is a little more deliberate. As I mentioned earlier the movie felt like it was dragging at times but it did serve to build anticipation for when Ray Brookes went full on badass and started delivering some vigilante justice.

Now I’d like to deliver a few customary bonus Bullet Points for your reading pleasure…

• Rank the Kanes: I’d rank Kane Keegan (Sean Cronin) from Kill Kane somewhere behind Cain from Robocop 2 and WWE’s Kane (Countdown). But all of them pale in comparison to the original, the Bible’s own Cain.
• Made in the UK: Just in case the actors, the accents or the locations weren’t enough to tip you off that this movie was made in the UK, the fact that they refer to the trunk of the car as “the boot” and the bathroom as “the loo” should raise a huge red flag.
• Fun Fact: Vinnie Jones was actually supposed to play the Frank Noonan mobster boss role, which was a considerably smaller part. But after reading the script he decided he wanted to try his hand at the Ray Brookes character.