Any time you catch Kevin Corrigan just seemingly popping up in something is an utter delight. The guy’s a terrific actor and completely underrated. I remember seeing Pineapple Express (2008) when it first came out with a friend of mine and we both said “It’s Kevin Corrigan”. Corrigan has knack of stealing the scenes he’s in so you never forget him. When my friend and I exclaimed giddily at his appearance it’s because we recognized him from Trees Lounge (1996) and Henry Fool (1997); two of our favorite films at the time.
So any film that legitimately stars Kevin Corrigan is something special. Some Guy Who Kills People (2012) isn’t the most original film that’s ever been made but it does star Kevin Corrigan. Of course, it is Kevin Corrigan’s lead performance that elevates this otherwise uneven, oddball dark comedy. As an actor he brings a pathos to every scene, even if only subtly, that suggests an inner life to his character that extends far beyond the boundaries of the narrative.
Corrigan’s best scenes are with Karen Black who plays his mother. Black is a legend that has never really gotten her due. They have an immediate chemistry as scene partners that takes on a degree of idiosyncrasy that is wholly organic in nature and very rare in a genre film. The way that these two actors navigate the passive aggressive power plays is equal parts hilarious and heartbreaking.
Director Jack Perez hangs the plot of Some Guy Who Kills People around Corrigan’s performance and those scenes with his best co-stars that bring an uncomfortable amount of reality to the film. In addition to Karen Black, the best scenes feature cult-icon Barry Bostwick and The Wire alumni Leo Fitzpatrick. It’s in these small interactions that Perez strikes a balance between the slasher picture and the family drama.
It’s an ambitious undertaking to fuse these desperate genres but Perez manages to pull it off for the most part. However, just as things seem to be getting really bleak and a bit too real then all of the sudden there’s a happy ending. This commercial coda that resolves the film and exonerates Corrigan’s character is a last minute plot twist that doesn’t feel earned at all. The minute it is suggested that Corrigan is innocent the film goes into a severe tonal whiplash that undermines all of the work that has gone into the film prior.
This last minute happy ending is almost excusable if only because it is difficult not to root for a generally well made little independent film. This type of movie has been the milieu of Corrigan and Perez since the nineties and they are both more than able to sell schlock to their audience. Some Guy Who Kills People just could have been so much better and so much more relevant had it simply gone for broke and embraced the darkness that it flirted with for its first eighty minutes.
