Bullet Points: Desert Saints

If movies are to be believed, hitmen are out there killing important people left and right. Are there really as many hitmen completing their nefarious work as movies would like us to believe? I can’t answer that, but I can tell you I am still alive and movies are better with a hitman. That is why I gave the 2002 movie Desert Saints a watch, but it did give me one more question. Is Desert Saints going to be a hit, man?

• Jump – Kiefer Sutherland (Dead Heat) stars as Arthur Banks, a hitman who has become pretty notorious in the eyes of the FBI. Desert Saints decides to open with Banks about to assassinate an important person at a hotel only to jump back in time… in media res for the win. Get used to Desert Saints jumping back and forth, but I can live with it because when we jump back, we see Banks barreling down a deserted desert highway (or I guess just a desert highway) only to stop and have the passenger get gunned down by Banks. Hitman’s gotta hit. 

• Warm It Up – The FBI is after Banks, and besides attempting to track down Banks, they provide excellent exposition for the audience. If it wasn’t for the FBI we wouldn’t know that Banks picks up lonely single women and uses them in his hits only to kill them when his hit is done. A very smart play by Banks, except for the murdering part. It is also about this time that Banks picks up the hitchhiking Bonnie (Melora Walters). The FBI has a couple of agents and there is something not quite right with the pair and I am sure that won’t be important later.
• Alright – Banks and his new passenger Bonnie get along like oil and water. Which is to say they don’t get along but they are so good together, just like I know I shouldn’t but it is so easy to dump my used motor oil in the river. Desert Saints jumps forward to the hit, which we now see that Bonnie is with him, but before he can complete the job, back to the road. The pair is not getting along, and you would think that a hitman who kills his female partners would just do his thing a little early. Well, Banks tried but Bonnie emptied out his magazines without his knowledge. Bonnie is definitely smarter than we first thought. And who is Bonnie talking to on the fancy hotel shitter phone when Desert Saints jumps back to the hotel from the beginning?

• Tonite’s Tha Night – Nothing like a little hotel sex between a hitman and partner to mend any disagreements between said hitman and partner. Gas station bathroom murder of Bonnie’s former lover by Banks might have got the juices flowing but the country music bar dancing really sealed the deal. Bonnie is all aboard the assassination train and seems a little too interested and asking a lot of questions. There is no way that will be important later. Oh wait, we just learned Bonnie is an FBI agent. Do they teach hotel sex at Quantico? Why did Desert Saints give us a major twist with so much movie to go? There can’t be any more twists… can there?
• Da Bomb – We finally make it to the hotel scene from the beginning and the several interludes. We finally learn all about the hit Banks is working on and who Bonnie was talking to on the fancy hotel shitter phone. Desert Saints decides the early twist of Bonnie being an FBI agent wasn’t enough and we get one major criss-cross ending. I love when minor characters that I don’t care about all of a sudden come into play as major players in the ending.  Even better is an ambiguous ending that makes me question who from the cast of characters doing bad things am I supposed to be rooting for. I guess it is the one that I don’t like the least.

Desert Saints is a unique movie in that all the characters are pretty lousy but it kind of works. I suppose that is fitting for a movie about a hitman, a profession that is terrible. There is enough action to keep you interested and the story definitely has its twists, but it really comes down to Desert Saints being the Keifer Sutherland and Melora Waters show. Their characters both might be terrible people, but two wrongs make a right. There is nothing wrong with ending the Desert Saints Bullet Points with some Desert Saints Bonus Bullet Points.

• Familiar Face – Rachel Ticotin, from such favorites as Total Recall and F/X 2, plays Dora, a waitress that Blank has relations with every time he is in town.
• Worst Story – Bonnie tells a story about a doughnut shop that will make you never want to eat a doughnut again.
• Waiting For #2 – Desert Saints was written and directed by Richard Greenberg and it appears to be his only full length movie he directed. Where did you go Mr. Greenberg?