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80
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The Hollywood Reporter
Director-screenwriter Ben Wheatley brings a fresh mystery and bite to the hitman genre, although a deeply weird twist and buckets of gore may throw more than a few audience members.
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80
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Los Angeles Times Betsy Sharkey
This is a far more brutal film than Wheatley's first, 2009's "Down Terrace." Though it had crime at its center as well, it was balanced by a dry irony and far less blood. There is no offset in Kill List, with one scene so relentless in its gore that it makes the notorious elevator scene in "Drive" pale in comparison.
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75
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Boston Globe Ty Burr
A scuzzy little cross between a crime movie and a horror freak-out that gets under your skin and stays there, even if you can't understand half of what the characters are saying.
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75
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Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert
The movie may leave you scratching your head way too much when it's over. Yet it proves Ben Wheatley not only knows how to make a movie, but he knows how to make three at the same time.
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75
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San Francisco Chronicle Peter Hartlaub
Kill List has a slow build, but don't be lulled into complacency. This is one of the most violent and disturbing films you'll see in an art house.
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70
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The New York Times Jeannette Catsoulis
That assured style is the spackle that holds Kill List together: when the plot doglegs into insanity, and the characters follow suit, this brutal fever dream refuses to fall apart.
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60
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NPR Scott Tobias
Following up his acclaimed debut feature "Down Terrace," a gangster drama that also mixed genre shocks with dark comedy and explosive family spats, Wheatley gives Kill List a discordant tone that makes it feel like a horror film even when it isn't.
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55
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Movieline Stephanie Zacharek
Wheatley drops enough unnerving bread crumbs in the first two-thirds to leave you wondering where the hell he's headed, and even the big finale should be satisfying enough: It just belongs to a different movie, and it's unsettling in a way that doesn't feel earned.
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50
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Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman
It's all very sub-Tarantino showy and empty - at least, until the head-scratching climax, which tries to be "Eyes Wide Shut," "The Wicker Man," and "The Twilight Zone" all at once, but only makes you wish that you were watching one of them instead.
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20
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New York Daily News Joe Neumaier
It would be easy to say that the final minutes of this mixed-up thriller make everything before it meaningless, but that would indicate the odd conclusion has meaning, too.
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