The Killing Zone (2003) Reviews

• I kept waiting for this to come to something and it never did

  MagicStarfire2006-07-25

  3 stars out of 10 This is the kind of film that should have meant something, but it never did. The film begins with some murky orange-hued scenes from when Dr. Malcolm was a young boy in Africa. What little I could get from this, it seems he and other young boys were forced into being soldiers in a war of some kind, maybe. There was a handsome young Doctor,(Michael Duvert), who was from the U.S. working in Africa and Malcolm wants to go to the U.S. Somehow that comes about, although it never explained how exactly, and then we go to 22 years later and Malcolm is a doctor of psychiatry with a wife and young son. The Doctor who was his mentor in Africa is also in the states now and he wants Malcolm to help with a clinic/hospital, that is located in a bad area. Malcolm agrees to do so. During a home visit to a schizophrenic patient, who needs to return to the hospital, an elderly woman has her purse snatched out on the sidewalk. The camera becomes so jerky at this point, it was never entirely clear what transpired, but the mentor Doctor gets shot during this botched robbery and is killed. After that, things get even murkier. We have orange-hued flash-back scenes of Malcolm that come to nothing. We have Malcolm wandering around the streets in the present day in scenes that come to nothing. Then one of Malcolm's patients, Johnnie, is thrown into the mix. Johnnie apparently is kind of a modern-day Fagan and has these street kids that he is training to steal for him. It is one of these kids that has shot the mentor doctor. Malcolm eventually gets his hands on the fat kid who shot his mentor and brings him back to the mentor doctor's apartment/house. Malcolm's wife comes in and sees he has the kid held there and says she's going to call the police, and she leaves. She also indicates she and Malcolm are through, only they aren't. Then we have Malcolm and a detective after Johnnie. There's another kid with Johnnie, a kid called Twist, and Malcolm apparently sees himself in this kid. The detective is going to shoot Twist and Malcolm prevents it from happening. So then does Twist become Malcolm's protégé? No, not as far as I could tell. The detective, who had Malcolm under arrest just prior to this, apparently doesn't follow through on the arrest, because that is just dropped entirely with no explanation and Malcolm is seen back in his apartment with his own son. What happened to the fat kid? Beats me. What happened to Twist? Darned if I know. The film just trails murkily off into the sunset so to speak, with no real storyline, plot, conclusion, or anything else.