Killer Heat: Sun, Suspense, and a PI With Baggage
Sneha Jaiswal (Twitter | Instagram)
Oh no, not another twin movie where the siblings fall for the same person! Sure, Killer Heat was out a good month before the Bollywood thriller Do Patti, but they’re both about twins who don’t get along and are further divided over love. I’ll give half an extra point to Killer Heat for being a proper murder mystery, with someone mysteriously dying right at the beginning, unlike Netflix’s Do Patti, which is about an “attempted murder” case.
Directed by Philippe Lacôte and written by Matt Charman, Roberto Bentivegna, and Jo Nesbø, Killer Heat is based on a short story called “The Jealousy Man.” Joseph Gordon-Levitt plays PI (private investigator) Nick Bali, who is hired by Penelope Vardakis (Shailene Woodley) to investigate the death of her wealthy husband’s twin brother, Leo Vardakis (Richard Madden). However, it’s not easy to gather clues because the Vardakises virtually own the Greek island they live on, and nobody would dare go against them. Was Leo murdered by Elias over a possible secret affair with Penelope, over a financial misdealing, or did he just fall to his death during a free solo climb? Nick Bali finds the truth.
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Nick Bali narrates the events in Killer Heat, beginning by recalling the Greek myth of Icarus, the boy who flew too close to the sun, paralleling the themes with the lives of the high-flying Vardakis family. I just couldn’t warm up to the narration style; Nick narrates in the tone of a pretentious tragic hero, as if he’s some all-knowing god who has fallen. Besides, his own personal life often takes center stage in the narration, and he reveals his familiarity with jealousy due to his past. Even though his personal issues affect the investigation, they only slow down the tale.
Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s portrayal of Nick Bali is like a middle-aged Hercule Poirot with drinking issues and baggage from a failed marriage. He knows how to get people to talk, yet isn’t as charming as Monsieur Poirot from Belgium. Richard Madden plays twins Leo and Elias: Leo is the awkward, reserved one, while Elias is the flirty, passionate, ambitious brother. There are very few scenes of Leo in Killer Heat, who appears only in flashbacks since he dies at the very beginning, so I couldn’t spot any differences between the brothers’ personalities—Richard Madden makes the twins feel like one person. Shailene Woodley doesn’t have much to do in the film except take occasional updates from Nick Bali on his investigation, and of course, there are some love-triangle flashbacks between her and the twins that don’t stand out.
Killer Heat is slow, pretentious, but has some beautiful shots of the Greek islands it’s set in. While some twists are predictable, there’s a climactic twist I didn’t see coming, and it was pretty good. Not sure how “short” the short story this is based on was, but Killer Heat feels boringly slow. Thanks to a talented cast, though, it’s still a watchable thriller.
Rating: 5 on 10. Stream ‘Killer Heat’ on Prime Video.
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