Could a movie co-starring Mickey Rourke as a hit-man be the feminist film of the year? Quite possibly, yes.The movie is Killshot and it is scheduled to open later this month. There is one big reason I want it to be a feminist film--that is, a story that either treats women as socially, politically, and economically equal to men or, more likely, shows the folly and injustice of not treating them as such--and several good reasons to believe the filmmakers just might deliver.Director John Madden has a good story to work with and deftly handled a feminism-friendly subtext in his best film, Shakespeare in Love. Not that that particular subtext was too much of a challenge: after all, Elizabethan practices notwithstanding, a woman can probably better play the part of a woman on stage than could a man.
That is not to say Killshot is likely to be a “message” film--I deplore that kind of movie and do not think there is much danger of it happening in this case--but it's a good bet that the story will say something incidentally enlightening about social relations while entertaining the audience.
Why do I think this kind of story is possible? Because the movie is based on a novel by Elmore Leonard.
Click here to read the rest of my argument over at Spot-on.com.
Click here to watch a 2-minute trailer for Killshot.
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