Fest Track On Sirk TV Film Review: KICK ON [Toronto International Film Festival - Toronto, Ontario]
The notion of a night gone wrong is the context that any day can bring depending on the rabbit hole being circled. "Kick On" [Midnight Madness] talks of such a night. Four friends just want to score a little bit of nose candy after their stash runs out. Their happy-go-lucky would-be frat boy decides to drop in on the son of a would-be gangster with his own drug crib in a sketchy building. The Alfred Molina scene from "Boogie Nights" is obviously a touchstone where one simple wrong angle can send violence in a weird direction. Nikolai Nikolaeff plays Ray, a tweaked-out drug boy/man with dad issues who just wants to be liked but can’t control himself. He brings in the four college-age kids who just want to up their night. They want to get in and get out but he keeps offering them booze and a new cut of their favorite. They are not addicts by any sort but simply caught up at the wrong time. Eden (Markella Kavenagh) who is obviously the focal point of the movie is also dealing with a sick sister which we get wind of in the prologue. An opportunity presents itself and that triggers everything moving though a cockroach would have caused this collection of friends to trip up. There are hidden secrets of course.
Two methed out girls who happen to be there figure into this progression and provide one of the more interesting fight sequences. Director Nick Kozakis builds his scenes on these kind of auspices and pushes them to the hilt in the gore. That meth scene is one of the lesser ones but not by far. A window sequence and its ensuing aftermath is equally brutal as if the team was seeing how much further they could go. Escape is almost impossible and the fact that no one is spared is beautiful. A elevator fight which is just a primal fight for survival really ups the context until the final scene shows up. Kavenagh takes her role to task and the whole audience roared when she finally did. It was expected but welcomed. The interesting dynamic that plays out though is Ray and his relationship to his father. The way it breaks down is Machiavellian but still equally brutal. There is a little bit too much spoken about Caesars and power since that tries to give the film more scope that it actually has. "Kick On" is a ride for the Madness crowd trying to push the boundary while just being a gory night out for the so-inclined. It has its moments for sure with some great kills while still staying within its specific world. 83%/B
By Tim Wassberg
