PLOT: A thrilling, contemporary mystery in classic noir style, Killer Heat follows private eye Nick Bali, an American expat in Greece, hired to investigate the supposed accidental death of young shipping magnate Leo Vardakis on the island of Crete. The victim’s sister-in-law doesn’t believe the official police report. But what exactly happened to Leo, and why? Despite the sun-drenched beauty of its exotic Mediterranean locale, Nick finds darkness at every turn: where the rich and powerful Vardakis family rule like gods, where jealousies run deep, and anyone could be a suspect.
REVIEW: The hard-boiled detective movie has been a trope since the early days of cinema. The term “noir” has taken on a meaning in modern film that has turned into a cliche itself. If you picture the genre in your mind, you likely conjure up fedoras, femme fatales, cigarettes, cocktails, dastardly villains, and lots of gunfire. The new film Killer Heat wallows in those elements but takes it out of dark alleys and New York City bars and places it on the sun-washed shores of Greece. Led by Joseph Gordon-Levitt as a youthful surrogate for Humphrey Bogart, Killer Heat promises all of the key elements of a noir mystery and delivers all of them. The problem is that Killer Heat sticks so close to the formula for a successful noir that it fails to try and be anything original. Despite solid supporting turns by Shailene Woodley, Richard Madden, and Clare Holman, Killer Heat is neither hot nor cool.
Killer Heat opens with requisite voice-over narration from Nick Bali (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), a former New York City cop turned private investigator now living in Athens. Nick is called to a remote island by Penelope Vardakis (Shailene Woodley), the wife of Elias Vardakis (Richard Madden), the scion of a major European company. Penelope called in Nick to investigate the death of Elias’ identical twin brother, Leo (also Madden), whose climbing accident she believes was murder. Nick quickly ingratiates himself with local cop George Mensah (Babou Ceesay) as he looks into how Elias, Penelope, and matriarch Audrey Vardakis (Clare Holman) may or may not be involved. What follows involves watching the suspects via telescopes and binoculars, Nick posing as various people to investigate, and multiple red herrings meant to trick the viewer into thinking anyone could be the killer.
As the film progresses, we learn that Nick’s unique insight into this investigation comes from an event in his past involving his wife, Monique (Abbey Lee), and their daughter, Cleo. What occurred to Nick comes into focus as the story develops and serves as an explanation for why he lives in Athens and why he has such a bad drinking problem. Nick also seems to be fixated on white pants, and he calls out the distinct legwear three different times in the first half hour of the movie. Nevertheless, Nick is a good investigator but one whose temperature rarely rises above the monotone delivery of the narration. Gordon-Levitt previously starred in Rian Johnson’s unique take on the noir genre, Brick, which imbued the story with a youthful energy. Killer Heat opts for a more traditional take on the material despite being populated by a cast predominantly under the age of 40. There is nothing wrong with homage or respecting the classics, but Killer Heat tends to do this to a fault, including constantly overexplaining character motivations via wooden dialogue.
Very little in Killer Heat defies expectations. The closest to deviating from the classic noir formula is that the femme fatale character is not a femme fatale. Shailene Woodley parades around in bikinis and has a sex scene, but the most revealing character is played by Richard Madden, whose abs and rippling biceps are bared more often than not. But, when there is a sex scene, more is suggested than shown, which keeps the film from crossing from thriller into erotic. My favorite interactions come from Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Babou Ceesay, who have a nice back-and-forth chemistry as the cop and PI discuss naming conventions for New York boroughs. It is the sole moment of levity in an otherwise dour film. As well-cast as everyone is in Killer Heat, no one really gets to do much but spout their lines and stand where they are supposed to stand.
Directed by Philippe Lacôte, Killer Heat is the director’s first English-language film after his critically acclaimed French productions Run and Night of the Kings. Lacôte uses the Mediterranean vistas and rich shooting locations but is saddled with a weak script. Roberto Bentivegna (House of Gucci) and Matt Charman (Bridge of Spies) based Killer Heat on the short story “The Jealousy Man” by Jo Nesbo. Nesbo is the best-selling author of multiple mystery novels, including the fan-favorite Harry Hole series. Nesbo’s work was previously adapted as the film The Snowman starring Michael Fassbender and Harry Hole, which is being turned into a Netflix series, but those books have much more to them than Killer Heat. This story is so by the numbers that if the characters are not explaining things, then the narration does it for them. From the expected opening to the not-quite-shocking twist ending, Killer Heat is very familiar, but not in a good way.
Based on the talent involved, I had higher hopes for Killer Heat, and it seems like they did as well. There was a lot of potential for this to have been a sexy throwback to a bygone genre. Instead, Killer Heat is as formulaic and cliche as they come, with no real surprises or energy. It is a safe watch with no nudity and mild violence, leaving the R-rating to be based on the use of more than one f-bomb. Joseph Gordon-Levitt is better than this material, but he is still more than capable of playing a hard-boiled detective, and I would love to see him get a project worthy of that. Killer Heat is a mystery that is not mysterious and too familiar to distinguish itself from everything else out there.
Killer Heat is now available to watch on Prime Video.