Kills on Wheels, Tiszta szívvel (2016)
Directed by: Attila Till
Written by: Attila Till
Starring: Ádám Fekete, Szabolcs Thuróczy, Zoltán Fenyvesi
Available on Dual Format DVD & Blu-ray November 2017
AKA Tiszta szívvel (With a Pure Heart)
What’s in a title? Well in this case not so much. The original Hungarian name is pretty vague, offering some sense of intrigue, but as you might expect English language distributor have changed it to sell to an international audience. The latter does suggest the tone but neither one is ideal. But while there is a certain dark humour to the story, a tale of two disabled teenagers and a wheelchair bound assassin, this is more of a human drama than just a story about shady Eastern European gangsters. It may not even be about them at all as the story unfolds. It’s really a film that look into themes of tragic romance, rejected children, and attempts to create art during difficult times. How well all of these ideas come together as an overall narrative is not always successful, but it’s still an interesting project.
Zolika (Zoltán Fenyvesi) is a troubled teenager with a lot on his plate. Not only does he have a severe back problem crushing his body, but his mother is divorced and his father has left to start a new family in Germany. Since she works in athletics and his dad is absent there’s a dark cloud of rejection hanging over everything. He spends much of his time at a care home with his room mate Barba (Ádám Fekete) who is able to walk but suffers from a different a disorder which makes his physical actions very difficult. In the face of adversity they plan to publish a comic book to cope with some of these issues, and at the same time make something of themselves creatively at an upcoming convention. However, they soon meet with ex-con Rupaszov (Szabolcs Thuróczy) and things begin to become more fantastic.
It’s sign-posted pretty much straight away but there may be more going on than it first appears. Rupaszov’s surreal prison release echoes their life at the home and his convenient appearance happens to offer them another way to make money; through his shady deals with a Serbian crime boss. There are plenty of hints that it’s not all based in reality, however things quickly push forward as the trio become friends; meeting in both bars and physiotherapy sessions. Zolika, rejecting his wealthy father’s money for a life saving surgery decides that aiding this new parental figure will be a way to help himself. Soon he becomes an accessory to some rather fatal encounters with local gangs and Barba finds himself acting as their getaway driver.
There’s a lot of effective human drama as Zolita battles with feelings of self doubt and helplessness, and it becomes apparent that his new acquaintance has a lot of issues of his own. Not only has Rupaszov lost his old job as a firefighter after an accident, but he’s lost his old flame (Lídia Danis) to another man after spending three years behind bars. On top of all this his boss, while initially happy to have a hit man that nobody would suspect, becomes wary of his young accomplices and wants them out of the way. As a result there are some typical underworld shoot outs and double crosses during a few different sequences as things unravel. However, there are a lot of tonal shifts throughout which means the teenage drama and thriller elements don’t always mesh together that well.
The story structure itself is pretty interesting but predictable plot reveals mean a lot of the suspense is drained away. The clues to how the therapy story and the the killings fit together is obvious quite early on, and so other aspects of the drama lack weight and impact. It doesn’t veer into anything too outlandish, and the humour is usually subtle and character based; such as Barba and his obsession with using deodorant sprays. Still, in the end the exploration of young people dealing with real life problems is pretty engaging. This is helped by the film-makers who have an understanding of these elements having chosen to cast actors who deal with disability off-screen. Not everything clicks into place and some of the grittier moments can be jarring against the broader coming-of-age plot, but it still manages to be a fairly sympathetic tale which offers a unique approach to a difficult subject matter.
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