San Francisco Independent Film Festival 2019

[Chris Knipp]

ROBERT D. KRZKOWSKI: THE MAN WHO KILLED HITLER AND THEN THE BIGFOOT (2018)


SAM ELLIOTT IN THE MAN WHO KILLED HITLER AND THEN THE BIGFOOT

Spectacular memories of an old man who still has skin in the game

It's fun rambling around in Robert D. Krzkowaki's ruminative, flash-back-ridden first feature, which is as overloaded as its title. Perhaps it's overambitious. Or perhaps it just has the flimsy panache of comic books, from which Krzkowaki coems. It focuses on a vigorous, handsome older man - that would be Sam Elliott, who's seventy-four but still has dash - who is haunted by memories. When he was young, Calvin Barr (in flashbacks played by Irish actor Aidan Turner), a man skilled at languages, went into deep cover as a Nazi officer to kill Hitler. We see it played out. Of course it didn't happen in real life, and it's a far-fetched fantasy. Now we follow Calvin Barr (played by Elliott) many years later. He downs whiskies at a bar every night, and easily wipes out a group of robbers who, trying to steal his car from him, succeed only in putting out a cigarette on his old wallet phto of a pretty girl - foreshadowing another rumination, on an old romance. Barr drives off in his big 1970's car. The year now, unspecified, must be around 1980.

Next day, Barr is alone with his trusty dog. A flashback of the assassination of Der Führer shows he had a German shepherd with him then. That's preceded by a wordy scene where a barber talks to young Barr about how drawing blood - but only if accidental - will mean good luck in his mission. He addresses young Barr as "America." In the present time, old Barr has a pebble in his shoe he can't find.

This is typical of the whole movie. The scenes are well done and for a moment each of them thoroughly draws us in. But the shifting, with the base of the swaggering, whisky-soaked and handsome oldster, establishes too little momentum. What it does is show Krzkowski as ingenious and energetic. Incidentally, The Man Who Killed Hitler doesn't overtax us much with its length, since it's only ninety-eight minutes.

"Despite excellent, committed performances from Elliott and Turner, and a few droll moments with agile comics Livingston and Manji, the film fails to engage. It veers from talky, melancholy drama to gory creature flick, and from innocent love story to swaggering war epic, as writer-director Krzykowski can't seem to nail down one cinematic style or message. Frequent flashbacks add another layer of confusion." So wrote Lisa Tsering in her recent review for Hollywood Reporter.

When old Barr is called on by the FBI to kill Bigfoot, a monster roaming Canada carrying a deadly all-slaying virus, the movie enters, through a protective ring of fire, its appealing (for fans of such) genre horror adventure phase. But it enters two thirds of the way through. A little late in the game.

SF INDIEFEST showtime: Thursday, January 31, 2019 at 7 PM – 9 PM - Roxie Theater
3117 16th St, San Francisco, Calif

Coming Soon - In theaters February 8.