Project: Kill

1976 "The Only Way Out Is Death!"
3.9| 1h30m| en| More Info
Released: 01 October 1976
Producted By: Mid-America Pictures
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Budget: 0
Revenue: 0
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Synopsis

A former government assassin flees a mind-control program in the Philippines, pursued by his ex-partner, the local police and Asian gangsters.

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Reviews

Scanialara You won't be disappointed!
Humaira Grant It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.
Kirandeep Yoder The joyful confection is coated in a sparkly gloss, bright enough to gleam from the darkest, most cynical corners.
Loui Blair It's a feast for the eyes. But what really makes this dramedy work is the acting.
winner55 This was obviously put together by Phillipino financiers hoping to sneak into the US TV movie market by stuffing American actors and crewmembers into and shooting it in English. They failed, miserably.Long, drawn out story of 'rogue' agent getting hunted by top secret assassination group.Although the acting is wet cardboard, and the direction and camera-work basically phoned-in, the worst parts of the films are its supposed action sequences - especially the martial arts choreography which is the phoniest I've ever seen.Nielson had four more years to wait before having his career saved by his appearance in Airplane! - this is the film his career had to be saved from.Not worth the buck it costs on cheapie DVD.
oscar-35 An older secret agent (Nielsen) detects and finds himself hunted by a group of drug-fueled hit men from a super secret military group in the sleazy underbelly of the Philipines. Star: Leslie Nielsen, Gary Stockwell. A very one-dimensional plot line with little interest and very boring for the viewer to watch. The actors are truly wasted in this film. The roles are 'phoned-in' with no energy. The Philipine locations are also wasted and add nothing to the production quality. The film's ending is really no surprise. This film leaves you feeling like you want the time you wasted watching this film back in your life. A totally flat film with no entertainment value. What a waste of film production money. Did the stars want an all expense paid vacation in the Philipines and US federal tax deduction? The film has no obvious purpose or theme.
lemon_magic There's a vaguely interesting storyline with a tragic overtone in this little film - if you were generous, you could even call it "Ludlum-esque" - and the two lead actors have done good work elsewhere, but any promise "Project Kill" might have is buried from the opening credits under laughable execution and cheap, shoddy direction and production values. I don't have the problem some viewers do with Leslie Nielsen as an dramatic hero, because I remember him from "Forbidden Planet". And Gary Lockwood was good in "2001" and even played the dashing lead in a light-weight fantasy film called "The Magic Sword". But this film proves that these two actors are really only as good as their screen-play and director let them be - they're badly miscast as secret agent "killing machines". Lockwood, in particular, just can't seem to get with the program - half of the time, he doesn't seem to know what to do with his arms. Nancy Kwan is OK - although she is so skinny and frail looking that it's kind of hard to see her as a sex object, and the other female "lead" is annoying, shrill and unappealing. (I admit that the lines her character has to speak don't help her cause.) Oddly, the acting in some of the minor parts is a lot better, or at least more suitable for the story. Victor Diaz hams it up nicely as the chief gangster, and the guy playing Inspector Cruz is actually a pleasure to watch - here's a character actor who knows what he's doing on camera. And some of the extras and gangster thugs mug pretty well for the camera. Also, when they get shot, they really get into the whole "death throes" thing. As for the fight scenes - it's as if someone associated with this movie watched the action sequences from "Mannix" and "Star Trek" and took notes...but they then lost their notes and tried to reproduce every thing from memory five years later. Nielsen and Lockwood are actually in pretty good shape for older male actors from that era, and Nielsen in particular is pretty buff with his shirt off - but they aren't fighters and they look silly and stiff trying to mix it up with the bad guys and with each other. There are a couple takes that don't completely such; for instance - there's a scene where Nielsen charges a door and shoots a bad guy through the door and back-fists another one out the window - that one was decent. Lockwood sucker punches a couple of thugs in a bar and hits one with piece of furniture, and that's decently done. But that's about it. There are some nice, pretty shots of scenery, and one or two decent shots of Nielsen looking forlorn and lost, but for the most part, the movie is completely static and boring; even the sound and vocals are muddy and muffled. Sound design is one of the most underrated, but important, aspects to a quality film, and this one was obviously recorded on the cheap, which costs it another star. Did I mention that the plot makes no sense? That there are holes in it you could drive a truck through? That most of the dialog completely misfires? I only paid a buck to see this (it's a reissue from Digiview Productions) and I watched with a couple of glasses of nice wine late one night after everyone else had gone to bed, but I wasn't sleepy...I was looking for a time-killer, and that's what I got. Poor Gary Lockwood. I hope he recovered from this.
Sturgeon54 And I am not talking about insulin for diabetes. Contrary to popular belief, veteran actor Leslie Nielsen did not have his first comedic role in "Naked Gun." No, ladies and gentleman, that role would have to be here, in "Project: Kill," one of the most unintentionally hilarious movies I've ever seen. What is so tragic is that I believe the filmmakers had half-sincerity in what they were doing - trying to make a decent '70s-style political paranoia movie on the cheap. Director and Kentucky-based B-movie maven William Girdler even called this his greatest film, making me wonder whether he had an injection or two of his own.What they made instead is a movie with Nielsen embarrassing himself as a drugged-up, brainwashed top-secret assassin, walking through the Phillipines for some reason with both a bunch of Asian gangsters and an ex-partner after him (played by Gary Lockwood who, unbelievably, was in "2001: A Space Odyessey" 8 years earlier. His presence here certainly indicates that he received no royalties from that film). While on this little travel excursion, we get to see the beautiful and seedy sides of the Philippines (the producer appears to have spent the majority of the budget on pointless scenic photography at the expense of a badly-needed dialogue coach), and we also get to see the clumsiest kung-fu fight scenes ever put to celluloid. I'm not kidding - it seems as if Bugs Bunny was the resident martial arts consultant for filming. In addition, we get plenty of pseudo-sophisticated camera-work a la Sidney J. Furie's "The Ipcress File." I half expected to see the cameraman's foot slip into the bottom of the screen these shots were so inept. Two other highlights: a music score which seems to cut off and restart incorrectly during scene transitions, and Lockwood's boss on the telephone who has the voice of Alvin and the Chipmunks.I feel deeply sorry for the people of the Philippines. First, the United States annexed their country and claimed it as U.S. territory, then a hundred years later it made cheap movies like this even more cheaply over there to exploit the currency differential. A movie like this is grounds for diplomatic sanctions by the Philippines against the U.S. It is good for a few laughs and for curiosity's sake. For that reason, I will forego giving it a formal star rating, and let you get out of this whatever qualities you may; after all, life is like a box of chocolates...