Fantastic Fest XXI Review: In KICK ON, Just Say ‘No’…Or Else!
Kick On enjoyed its US Premiere at the 21st edition of Fantastic Fest
I don’t always look into festival titles before outright reviewing them. More often than not, I skim the programming notes or go by still images to see if anything sticks out, unless it’s a film that I’ve heard about, and/or wrote on here in my anticipation of their hopeful fest premiere. Nick Kozakis’s Kick On was already garnering some buzz since premiering in Toronto, and with its US premiere out of Fantastic Fest, I can earnestly say that Kozakis’s latest is worth all the hype.
What starts out as a night full of drug-fueled debauchery turns into full-scale calamity for four party-hopping friends on the streets of Melbourne: loving couple Eden (Markella Kavenagh) and Drew (Ras-Samuel), and Lee (Kaitlin Boyé) and brother Zack (Nikita Chronis). Post-club brawl, the quartet decide to journey to a dealer’s apartment block to purchase a coke stint from Ray (Nikolai Nikolaeff), who also happens to be the son of Ruskie mob, Fedi (Jacek Koman). The exchange should have been in-and-out as Eden expected, at least until Roman insists his customers try a newly-cooked sampling at his own behest.
I’ll leave out at least one particular detail that accentuates some the film’s thematic driving forces, but Eden ends up making a discovery in the bathroom that unwittingly triggers violent catastrophe; Good intentions beckon albeit belated attention to what happens when a possessive and paranoid crime heir and his four customers share space together in a room full of bad ideas in the form of tempers, loaded guns, knives and a hatchet, and a building full of junkies. It is here that Kick On escalates into a full-on bloody fight for survival for Eden and her friends, trapped with no way out, and no choice but to fight, or die trying.
Phillip Klimek’s script keeps things at an energizing pace, backed firmly by the film’s cast and their crackling chemistry. Kavenagh’s portrayal of Eden sets the tone with a brief flashback that sets up the rest of the film along with some of its other aspects. Her character’s actions stick with you as the plot unfolds and the danger thickens in the film’s murky, harrowing atmosphere. Co-star Nikolaeff delivers an arresting, menacing performance ad villain fixated on imperial Roman history and art, and the burden of measuring up to a father who murderously demands more out of him, all while trying to maintain his own sense of authority over his loyalists.
The movie does excellently for its first half hour to maintain your interest. It’s enough to warrant your attention for the remaining hour as the bodies start stacking up, aptly reminding you why you shouldn’t get too attached to characters in a film like this. Therein lies the incumbent action, and the kind of violence and body horror that makes a film like Kick On ripe for the festival crowd. Gunshots, stabs, neck rakes, decapitations, defenestrations are just the gist of what you can expect on matters of body horror in this flick. To this end, one of the best lines you’ll hear in this film reads as “Jesus, which one of you dumb bastards stepped on a landmine?”
I’ll leave it to your imaginations from there on how that happened. Needless to say, the spectacle in Kick On doesn’t disappoint. At roughly ninety minutes, Kozakis invites you to a lean, mean, and solemn survival thriller with action scenes that’ll blow your head off. It’s loud, explosive, and checks all the boxes for anyone looking for a cinematic high.
STARRING
Markella Kavenagh, Nikolai Nikolaeff, Ras-Samuel, Jacek Koman
DIRECTOR
Nick Kozakis
WRITER
Phil Klimek
PRODUCER
Stephanie Troost
Simon Bell
SALES
Blue Finch Films
Native New Yorker. Been writing for a long time now, and I enjoy what I do. Be nice to me!
