In an attempt to find her sister, a woman gets a job at a building where everyone tries to kill her.
Absolutely bonkers!
Writer/producer Alex Litvak and writer/producer/director Kirill Sokolov decide very early on that reality, physics, and logic are optional concepts – and then proceed to throw all three out of the nearest Manhattan window of the titular building. What follows is an audiovisual explosion of action, gore, absurdity, and self-aware madness. They Will Kill You is not interested in realism. It is interested in spectacle. In excess. In entertaining you to the bone. And… Mission accomplished!
“Believing” gets completely defenestrated here. Instead, exaggerated, self-conscious insanity takes centre stage. Every sequence escalates the chaos further, turning the film into a hyperviolent fantasy filled with symbolic undertones, allegories about power, and a world operating entirely on cinematic adrenaline. If you are searching for grounded storytelling or airtight logic, you are in the wrong building entirely. But if you want the polar opposite – pure audiovisual carnage – look no further.
Zazie Beetz and Patricia Arquette throw themselves at each other with glorious intensity, while Myha’la, Paterson Joseph, Tom Felton, Heather Graham and the rest of the cast fully embrace the film’s insanity rather than trying to resist it.
And yes, the Quentin Tarantino influences are impossible to miss. The Kill Bill (2003/2004) DNA is splattered all over the screen – from the stylised violence to the rhythm of the editing and the almost comic-book choreography. But there is no parthenogenesis in art. Cinema constantly borrows, reshapes, and reinvents. What matters is whether filmmakers inject enough personality into those influences to make them their own. Here, they do.
In my last review, I teased a comparison, so here it is. What makes They Will Kill You particularly interesting is its thematic overlap with Ready or Not: Here I Come (2026): https://kaygazpro.com/ready-or-not-here-i-come-2026/, released only a week apart. Both films channel a similar fury toward the elite – the untouchable class operating by different rules while everyone else rows the boat they command. It reflects a growing cultural frustration. As Solon once suggested, democracy can resemble a spider web: the small insect gets trapped, while the powerful tear straight through it. Cinema reflects that anger because cinema reflects us.
We live in a world where the rich get far richer and the poor far poorer. For more than one reason, it doesn’t feel like home anymore. And that reflects on cinema, which, as I have said many times, lost count by now, is a cultural mirror. It reflects our views and projects our fears, insecurities, weaknesses, worries, but also strengths, passions, dreams, desires, and achievements.
Therefore, it couldn’t be more cathartic to see two female protagonists take down the people or institutions running this show from the shadows. So, why the hell not enjoy it and cheer for these amazing women?
P.S. Pretty Lethal (2026): https://kaygazpro.com/pretty-lethal-2026/ was also released between these films and also gave us the pleasure of seeing young women tear down a local empire. Pattern, anyone?
Thanks for reading!
Please, don’t forget to share. If you enjoy my work and dedication to film, please feel free to support me on https://www.patreon.com/kaygazpro. Any contribution is much appreciated and valued.
Solidarity for all the innocent lives that suffer the atrocities of war!
Stay safe!
