Way back in 1992, four film students in Belgium made the black comedy named C'est arrivé près de chez vous, otherwise known as Man Bites Dog (trailer below), a mockumentary along the lines of Spinal Trap (1984 / trailer) or, to go even further back, the funny Take the Money and Run (1969 / trailer), or to get back to the time of your great-granny, Bunuel's not so funny short Land without Bread (1933 / full short), but with a dark streak and mean bite. The French-language, B&W and extremely low-budget movie concerned a group of documentary filmmakers documenting the life and times of a serial killer. The film, which was rather a critical and financial success in Europe, eventually made its way to the US with an NC-17 rating where it wasn't exactly a hit, and has long since become a cult movie — in 2002, it was even given the stamp of cultural validation: a DVD release (original cut) by Criterion Collection (#165).
Man Bites Dog:
For that, nowadays that movie remains somewhat obscure, but there is little doubt in our minds that former SNL alumni Taran Killam watched the movie somewhere along the line and decided to do an American-style remake: bigger and "better" and in full color. (Aside from the basic concept and structure, both movies also share a major plot twist, if to greater importance in the newer movie.) Whether or not Killam's mockumentary, Killing Gunther, is "better" is open to discussion — for one, it lacks the subliminal social criticism of the original, and two, it is far less in-your-face and boundary-pushing. But, for that it is "bigger": it's in color, is a lot flashier, has a larger cast of killers, a lot more explosions, and a name star in the title role — no one less than a wasted life's favorite hunk o' muscles from the turn of the century, Arnold Schwarzenegger.* (That's him directly below, not from the movie but in his youthful prime, when we would have been happy to bend over or drop to our knees for him.)
* Arnie didn't exactly make waves or show promise as "Arnold Strong" in the bad-film fav Hercules in New York (1970 / trailer), but twelve years later his career took off with Conan the Barbarian (1982 / trailer) and The Terminator (1984 / trailer). It took Batman & Robin (1992 / trailer) and the unjustly reviled Last Action Hero (1993 / trailer) to really put a dent in his acting career, but what crippled it was probably his stint as the governor of California and the yellow-press scandal of his affair and child with a family housekeeper, Mildred Patricia "Patty" Baena, while still married to Maria Shriver. The scandal is more or less passé by now — after all, not being faithful and divorce, like school shootings and grabbing women by the pussy, are national pastimes in the US and have the full approval of the Republican party, and they are the heart and soul and penis of the country — and even if Arnie's name is no longer a guaranteed audience draw, he still has a solid twilight career. In the case of Killing Gunther, his name didn't exactly draw in an audience, and the movie proved to be anything but a success.
Killing Gunther, the "bigger" and "better" and full-color directorial debut of Taran Killam, concerns an assassin named Blake (played by Taran Killam) who, in the name of fame and glory – and, we eventually learn, for another reason that we won't reveal – decides to kill the world's most infamous hitman, Gunther (Arnie). He gathers together a team of fellow likewise fame-seeking killers to help, and forces a group of documentary filmmakers to document the entire undertaking as proof. The problem is, not only is Gunther always a few steps ahead of the hapless group of killers, he seems very much to be playing games with them...
Killing Gunther:
In general, Man Bites Dog might be the movie that deserves greater respect and reputation, but as far as mainstream American action comedies go, Killing Gunther is not all that disappointing as a black comedy. It delivers more than enough grins and laughs, and even surprises on occasion. True, Arnie (i.e., Gunther) doesn't show up until the last hour of the movie, but once he's there he is omnipresent. And, unlike other aged action stars — Mel Gibson and Bruce Willis promptly come to mind — he doesn't phone in his performance. In fact, his Gunther is amazing: an offbeat narcissist with oodles of charisma,* the screen literally lights up whenever he is on it, and despite the fact that he is a major asshole, he proves himself rather likable. Even if Killing Gunther sucked completely (it doesn't), his performance alone would make it worth seeing.
* The last film of his in which Arnie displayed as much cold-blooded narcissism as in Killing Gunther is Pumping Iron (1977 / trailer), but in that docudrama he was hardly funny.
If there is a flaw to Killing Gunther, it is the over-abundance of characters. The team that Blake puts together is as large as it is incompetent, and the result of such a plethora of characters is that few become truly memorable or have a lot to do. The psycho, proto-redneck Russian siblings Mia (Allison Tolman of Krampus [2015 / trailer]) and Barold (Ryan Gaul of Space Station 76 [2014 / trailer] & The Happytime Murders [2018 / trailer]) Bellakalakova, for example, hardly register while alive and are not missed once Gunther kills them. In turn, Izzat (Amir Talai), a former Islamist extremist with technically faulty Iron Man arm, may perhaps be given more attention but his demise is less funny than predictable, while Blake's mentor Ashley (Audrey Sixto) never becomes much more than a running (and thus predictable) joke. Of the tertiary (i.e., expendable for the plot development) members of the team, the funniest is perhaps Yong (Aaron Yoo of Demonic [2015 / trailer]), who kills only with poison and is thus pretty much worthless: he doesn't get much screen time, but every time he does something he instigates giggles or laughter.
It is perhaps in its resolution that Killing Gunther does finally lose steam: what appears to be a highly ironic if not downright mean resolution, one in which Blake succeeds only for Gunther to have a post-death final laugh, segues into a final scene that truly insults the viewer and only diminishes the movie.
So, in short: A perfect example of a good movie not ending when it should, Killing Gunther is a blackly humorous action comedy that manages to overcome its flaws and keep you happily entertained until it finally drops its balls during the last scene. Arnie has seldom been funnier, and alone the fun he has with his character makes the movie worth watching, despite the fact that he only shows up after an hour. Whatever Killing Gunther's flaws may be, it does offer 1.5 hours of fun and action, and as such is more than entertaining. It hardly deserves to be the forgotten flop that it is.
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