MOVIE REVIEW – Killer Heat is a sweltering film noir set on a picturesque Greek island, starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Shailene Woodley as part of a deadly love triangle. Based on a short story by Jo Nesbø, the movie borrows heavily from classic noir tropes without breaking any new ground. Having recently landed on Amazon Prime, it feels timely to take a closer look.

A great noir, like Love Lies Bleeding, always manages to feel contemporary, even when set in the past; it’s because the life-and-death stakes always come across as urgent and immediate. Killer Heat, however, while not so outdated that it feels stale, is more like a déjà vu version of the detective noirs we’ve seen many times before. First off: could the title be any worse? It sounds like some forgettable straight-to-video thriller from the ’80s starring Jim Belushi and Daphne Zuniga. Killer Heat kicks off with Joseph Gordon-Levitt delivering a slow-burn, philosophical voice-over (he always manages to sound like Keanu Reeves’ more intellectual brother), offering up one of those hardboiled nuggets: “The Icarus myth took place on the island of Crete. Apparently, no one there learned much from it…”

Twin Trouble

Just as you’re about to doze off, Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s character, Nick Bali, a private investigator in a hipster fedora, meets Shailene Woodley, who plays Penelope Vardakis, the troubled but wealthy wife of a shipping magnate based in Crete. Her brother-in-law has fallen to his death during a free solo climb, but she’s convinced it was murder. Penelope enlists Nick to investigate quietly, as the Vardakis family has a stranglehold on the local police and pretty much everyone else on the island.

The first twist: Penelope’s husband, Elias, and his late brother, Leo, were identical twins. Both roles are played by Richard Madden, who, though conventionally handsome to the point of distraction, eventually reveals his acting chops. Most of the time, Madden is Elias, the violent and extortionist ruler of the island, quick to lose his temper. In flashbacks, however, he plays Leo, the kinder of the two, who was the first to fall in love with Penelope. They met at Oxford, and their relationship grew complicated. That’s when Elias pulls a devilish move: he arranges a secret rendezvous between Leo and Penelope, only to show up himself, posing as Leo. It’s a scenario reminiscent of David Cronenberg’s Dead Ringers (1988), where Jeremy Irons played sinister twin gynecologists.

The Cost of Passion

The bedroom scene between Penelope and Elias-as-Leo is intense (you could say it has “killer heat”), and you almost wish the movie had leaned more into this deception, with further role-swapping and sibling rivalry. But soon enough, we’re back in the present day, where Killer Heat settles into a more straightforward murder mystery love triangle. The dynamics shift slightly, but the big questions remain: Were Penelope and Leo having an affair? And what exactly happened in Leo’s death? These are the answers Nick, with the help of a local cop (played by Babou Ceesay), is searching for.

Killer Heat is based on The Jealousy Man, a short story by the immensely popular Norwegian crime writer Jo Nesbø. However, any intrigue that might have existed on the page is mostly smoothed over in the film, where the unraveling twists feel more like filling in the blanks. Director Philippe Lacôte does a decent job of spinning the story, but it lacks the titular “heat.” Maybe it’s because the dots he connects are too drenched in sentimentality. Nick drowns his sorrows in whiskey, coping with the pain of losing his family. His wife, Monique (played by Abbey Lee), had an affair, so the film’s theme of murderous jealousy echoes through his own life as well. Yet by the time it all wraps up, the resolution feels overly tidy — a noir with an all-too-clean finish.

-Gergely Herpai “BadSector”-