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Rick Burin finds much to enjoy in this thrilling wartime drama, including a turn by the legendary star of silent cinema Lillian Gish.

Orders to Kill is a mixture of thriller, human drama and expressionist nightmare along the lines of Powell and Pressburger’s The Small Back Room, but with an added dimension.

Beginning wittily, it weighs in with the big themes about a half hour in, asking what can be justified in times of war. Paul Massie plays an American bomber pilot sent to Paris to rub out a suspected traitor (Leslie French). We follow his training, then the mission itself, as Massie’s initial excitement gives way to uncertainty and disorientation.

Incredibly, the cast includes not only former silent screen titan Lillian Gish, who is quietly magnificent, but also British cinema’s finest buffoon, James Robertson Justice, playing an expert in execution with an unexpected depth. Drawing immense power from Massie’s central performance, this is an intelligent, adult, and almost unbearably tense war drama, with at least one moment of sheer jaw-dropping terror. It also features a sublime ‘fun house’ training sequence that has imagery worthy of noir pioneers John Alton and Nicholas Musuraca.

 

Rick Burin on 1st August 2009
View all 34 of Rick Burin's reviews