Essential Killing
Director: Jerzy Skolimowski
Year Released: 2010
Rating: 1.0
A terrorist of unknown origin (Vincent Gallo) blows up several people with a grenade launcher and then begins an eighty-minute dash from the ever-in-pursuit Forces of Freedom who seek to recapture him. While the basically-mute Gallo becomes the sole focal point of this movie - which does its damnedest to avoid making any kind of political statements - it's impossible to shake the fact that his character is a terrorist and that capturing him is a good thing. He goes through hardship after hardship - fighting off dogs, outrunning soldiers through the snow, combating a man with a chainsaw - but with limited context (and virtually no dialogue), it's best to actually want his character to get found and/or killed: when Gallo's survivalist dies on a white horse (Symbolism Alert!), it saves the troops time in trying to look for him.
