Killer Heat Movie Review: the adaptation of the short story The Jealous Man by Jo Nesbø, brought to the screen by Philippe Lacôte and starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt. From September 26, 2024 on Prime Video.
The extraordinary literary production of Jo Nesbø considered one of the masters of Scandinavian noir, has provided and continues to provide so much narrative material made up of stories and characters to the audiovisual industry. In fact, there are numerous adaptations for the big and/or small screen made at different latitudes from his writings, including The Snowman, Headhunters, and The Hanging Sun. The most recent is the one that Philippe Lacôte forged from the pages of The Jealous Man, a short story included in an anthology published in 2021 with the title Jealousy, which landed directly in streaming on Prime Video where it debuted on September 26, 2024, with the title Killer Heat.
Killer Heat: the total absence of tension in a film that has in its DNA a fusion of genres in which the thriller dictates the rules of engagement and intertwines with modern noir and hard-boiled represents a serious shortcoming
The failure to release in theaters a film with such a pedigree, which in addition to the prestigious signature on the original matrix of the Norwegian writer could also count on the contribution to the cause of the Ivorian director (already author of the tense drama Run and the fascinating La nuit des rois) and an all-star cast composed among others by Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Shailene Woodley and Richard Madden, sounded like an alarm bell that anticipated the arrival of a strong smell of burning.
It is not the first time that a film by will of the production and/or distribution bypasses the theater in favor of immediate release on the web, but for a project with similar cards to play as Killer Heat, some doubts about its qualities cannot help but arise. In fact, despite the ingredients available and the fact that behind the adaptation and the rewriting process, there were two heavyweights of the caliber of Roberto Bentivegna (co-author of House of Gucci) and Matt Charman (co-author of Bridge of Spies), the result, unfortunately, confirmed the doubts and the discouraging rumors that had been circulating in the months and weeks before the landing on the platform.
At the end of the viewing, the impression is that of having watched any television episode of a detective series due to the increasingly dull events that accompany the viewer on duty towards a predictable epilogue despite a couple of surprise shots placed at Cesarini. In the middle, a single poorly made action scene and tension as a great and heavy unjustified absence, which for a film that has in its DNA a fusion of genres in which the thriller dictates the rules of engagement and intertwines with modern noir and hard-boiled represents a serious lack.
The narrative structure and the dynamics of the film are the result of an assembly of stylistic features of the genres called into question and of stereotyped characters.
If in his story Nesbø, while drawing on the clichés of the genres called into question, had managed to dose them and make functional use of them, in the adaptation the clinging even more firmly to them makes them end in themselves and merely accessories. This makes the narrative structure and dynamics of Killer Heat an assembly of stereotypical characters and styles (a private detective, a femme fatale, two identical twins, one alive and one dead who knows how) that coexist by force of inertia, delivering to the user a mystery with untapped potential that for those who remember the matrix leaves a bitter taste in the mouth for what could have been and was not.
The audience will be left with nothing but a feeling of déjà-vu rather than novelty, or at least a lack of involvement concerning a type of story that from this point of view could offer a lot, but which on the contrary has limited itself to delivering a superficial vision of a thriller that could have shone under the Greek sun but that despite itself and us turns out to be a mechanical and forced intrigue.
The outcome nullifies how much of the potentially intriguing and engaging had been made available by the short story by Jo Nesbø on which Killer Heat is based.
Set in the sunny and mysterious Crete, the setting of a case of the apparently accidental death of a young tycoon on which a private detective with a troubled past is called upon by the victim's sister-in-law to investigate, Killer Heat had in fact in the dichotomy between the breathtaking beauty of the Greek islands and the horror of a bloody story steeped in darkness and pain (Glass Onion - Knives Out comes to mind) an excellent starting point.
The screenplay refers to broader social tensions that go beyond the case in question, highlighting the contrast between the idyllic beauty of the location and the despicable intrigues that nest within it that refer to unspeakable secrets and irreconcilable family conflicts. Jealousy, as the original title of the story suggests, is one of the keys to understanding the story, but in the end, it becomes only a potential motive that pushes the viewer toward the closure of the circle. All of this will in fact be undermined by a monotonous narrative and technical execution, lacking in noteworthy jolts, with a voice-over of the protagonist that is annoying in the long run and a direction that lacks style and rhythm.
Killer Heat: evaluation and conclusion
A story by Jo Nesbø, a talented director like the Ivorian Philippe Lacôte, the breathtaking beauty of the Greek islands as a backdrop, and an all-star cast composed of Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Shailene Woodley, and Richard Madden, among others, are not enough for Killer Heat to satisfy the expectations of lovers of high-voltage thrillers. The outcome, both narratively and technically, nullifies all the potentially good that had been made available by the short story by the famous Norwegian writer, with the adaptation that presents itself to the public as an end-in-itself assembly of stereotypical stylistic features and characters that belong to the reference genres, namely detective stories, hard-boiled films, and modern noir, weakly mixed here.
Before an epilogue that attempts a desperate surprise move in the last minute to try to change the fate of a disappointing result on several fronts, including the technical one, the writing plays the card of family secrets and jealousy as the driving force, but in the end, the whole thing turns out to be predictable and not very engaging due to a plot devoid of tension and a direction lacking in rhythm and noteworthy solutions. The interpreters also pay the price, with those called into question appearing to be distant relatives and faded photocopies of what they have demonstrated in previous performances.