Uma Thurman and Samuel L Jackson didn’t share any screen time in Pulp Fiction (though their paths crossed briefly in Kill Bill Vol 2) so this comic thriller can take credit for turning the Tarantino twosome into a double-act for the first time. Thurman plays Patrice, a highly strung, Adderall-snorting Manhattan gallery owner whose acquisitions haven’t exactly set the art world alight. Enter Gordon (Jackson), a Brooklyn bialy baker and underworld stooge who proposes funnelling mob money through her books as supposed payment for artworks.
Local hoodlum Reggie (Joe Manganiello) puts paintbrush to canvas to create these bogus masterpieces, which are credited to “the Bagman” since he suffocates his enemies with carrier bags. Unexpectedly, he becomes the toast of New York, making a killing in both senses and enraging his mafia paymasters in the process. There are shades of The Producers in the calamity of Reggie’s unforeseen success, as well as a hint of Bullets Over Broadway in the notion of a brute with hidden artistic flair, but Nicol Paone’s flat direction and Jonathan Jacobson’s listless screenplay leave the cast painting by numbers.
At least Thurman and Jackson clearly relish each other’s company. Thurman in particular gives good comic fatigue, such as when she encounters a pair of thugs outside her premises. “Nice gallery,” says one. “It’d be a shame if …” Rolling her eyes, she picks up the slack: “‘Something were to happen to it’? Really?” Menace her, by all means. Just don’t bore her.
Thurman’s real-life daughter Maya Hawke is also amusing as an indignant artist, though the charisma-free Manganiello has a habit of draining the life from the screen. Far better if Reggie had been played by Matthew Maher, who was so entertainingly volatile in last year’s Funny Pages and gets a few scenes here as Patrice’s nerdy drug dealer. But for art-world satire and genuine guffaws, Tony Hancock in The Rebel still knocks this whole thing into a cocked beret.
• The Kill Room is released on 24 November on Prime.
