Kiss or Kill

After the disastrous Two If by Sea, director Bill Bennett slunk back to Australia, presumably to lick his wounds and redeem himself with another project. The result is Kiss or Kill, and it won't restore Bennett to respectable pre-Sandra Bullock status. Nic (Frances O'Connor) and Al (Matt Day) are a volatile pair on the lam after a businessman they swindle is found dead in a hotel room. The sexually uninhibited pair make their way through the desolate Australian countryside, trying to elude both the police and a menacing pedophile/stalker; meanwhile the body count continues to rise. Surrounded by the mysterious deaths and influenced by the isolation of the desert, Nic and Al start to suspect each other of the killings.

A sort of Natural Born Killers with Hitchcockian aspirations, Kiss or Kill never rises above its artsy pretensions. Bennett has to use jarring cuts to inject a sense of disorientation; the characters are never engaging enough to stir up any emotion other than morbid curiosity. The film could have been a compelling combination of criminal compulsion and psychological creepiness; instead it ends up being both derivative and relentlessly manipulative. Screens at the Kendall Square Thursday at 7 and 9:30 p.m. and Friday at 2 p.m. Director Bill Bennett will appear before tonight's 7 p.m. screening.

-- Clarissa Cruz

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