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LOVE
Written, Edited & Directed by: Vladan Nikolic.
Produced by: Jim Stark.
Cinematography by: Vladimir Subotic.
Music by Standing in Lines and Skip Shirley & Vladimir Nikic.
Released by: Koch Lorber Films.
Country of Origin: USA. 93 min. Not Rated.
With: Sergej Trifunovic, Geno Lechner, Peter Gevisser, Didier Flamand, Mario Padula, Al Naz, Erik Frandsen, Liat Glick & Kerry Rossi.
DVD Features: Trailers. Making-of featurette.

Vladan Nikolic’s stubborn and angry stab at the New York crime-cum-multi-faceted character drama has a sense of a plot hovering over every scene, but once one gets adjusted to the picture’s rhythm, it slips away. Filling in the blanks, a deadpan narrator reveals the backstory for every character.

And yet for all of this, Love is a good film, compulsively watchable. It tells its story through one hard luck character, and then another, and so on. The main character (I think) is Vanya (Sergej Trifunovic), who was orphaned in Bosnia and is now a hit man. He wants to retire after that “one last job.”

His assignment at a New York City hotel is another of “those” jobs where everything goes wrong, which is to say there’s a body count. But the hostage Vanya ends up taking, coincidentally, is Anna (Geno Lechner), his ex-wife, who’s engaged to Dirk Malloy (Peter Gevisser), a (you guessed it) cop. To say too much more would be too complicated. In fact, Anna could just be considered a McGuffin for what happens between Vanya and Dirk, who, in trying to save Anna, becomes one more hostage for the hit man.

The blunt title is surely ironic considering the lack of love in these characters’ lives. Besides, there isn’t much romance. Vanya and Anna try to reignite past passions, but it doesn’t fly; there’s a detachment between them. But it’s not precisely the actors who make this a worthwhile experience anyway. What Nikolic does with the writing and direction reminds me of another recent film, Fay Grim, where Hal Hartley similarly mixes international intrigue and the malaise of the past hanging over the characters. But here, the dialog isn’t very convoluted, and if it sometimes is, it serves a dark comedic purpose, like the mob boss who is obsessed with erections or a drag queen, played with subtle hilarity by Didier Flamand, who comes to Vanya’s aid.

The superbly dry humor comes in unexpected doses and with a knowing wink to all of the crime films that Nikolic has ever seen, which are probably quite a few. (The narrator’s description of one government hit man and his love for comedies amidst his depression is classic.) Truly nutty are the camera angles within the climax, filmed from every conceivable point of view, including from Vanya’s gun in a nod perhaps to John Woo’s The Killer).

It’s an engaging film, and like a French new-wave film, it arrives at its logical conclusion almost illogically. For those willing to take a chance in a genre so polluted with complacency, the payoff involved is short (93 minutes) and slightly sweet.

DVD Extras: Koch Lorber gives only a few bits – two theatrical trailers (one brief, one long, the former the better), and the featurette where Nikolic talks about shooting a film like this, with 40 locations on a budget the size of “a mid-size SUV.” Jack Gattanella
July 27, 2007