Let’s be clear right off the bat here — Killer Heat is a terrible movie. It is, however, hilariously How Did This Get Made level bad. It may be one of the great comedies of the year. The only problem is that the people who made it thought they were making a gritty noir.
We open with our anti-hero, Nick Bali (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), a version of the classic noir gritty PI. He’s a latter-day Sam Spade, if you could make a copy of Spade with a broken Xerox machine from the late ’90s. Bali speaks bad Greek, hates white pants, and, of course, drinks heavily. He’s a man hiding a dark past and wrestling with his demons whilst trying to earn a buck because this is very much the kind of movie we are in. At the start of the film, we learn that he recently left the NYPD, abandoned his wife and child, and moved to Athens to be a private dick (pun intended).
We join Bali not in Athens but Crete, where he has been hired by the wife of a shipping magnate (Penelope Vardakis, played by Shailene Woodley) to investigate the suspicious death of her brother-in-law. Her brother-in-law (Leo Vardakis, played by Richard Madden) is actually the identical twin of Penelope’s husband Elias (also played by Richard Madden). If you can see where this is going, welcome to the party, we’re thinking of getting matching t-shirts.
Bali monologues heavily throughout about Greek gods and Icarus and hubris because, you guys, we’re in Greece. He also takes issue with Penelope for being a rich person because she wears white pants and not because she drives a vintage Mercedes. During their first white-bepanted meeting, Penelope explains that although the police have ruled the brother-in-law’s death a rock-climbing accident, she believes there was foul play. Hiring a washed-up American detective is the logical next step.
Speaking of logic, Penelope decides the best place for Bali to stay is not a hotel, of which I assume there are a few in Crete, but in a monastery. Does she at least have the decency to get him to dress up as a monk to blend in? She does not. Penelope, as a bored rich lady, got to know the monks while using the monastic library. How this translates to “put up with this drunk American I hired for my secret investigation” is unclear.
Bali’s first point of call after settling in with his new monk buddies is the local police station, where detective Babou Ceesay (Georges Mensah) is conducting his own covert investigation by taking photos of people he clearly already knows and putting them up on a big board in his office. Don’t get too attached to Babou, because again, it’s clear what kind of movie we are in. Babou finds Bali’s half-assed story about being an insurance investigator questionable because it is, and mocks his accent by saying his dog is more Greek than Bali. The dog’s nationality is never established, which is not a sentence I thought I would ever write.
Having learned very little from Babou, whose investigation is about as effective as Bali’s, Bali decides to track down Penelope’s husband Elias, who is also wearing white pants. Having tracked down Elias, he decides to give him a different story about why he needs to talk about Leo’s death, because when conducting a stealthy investigation, it’s important to leave a lot of opportunities for people to easily realize you are lying. Babou, who apparently has a lot of time on his hands, tips off Elias to Bali’s deception because Babou is following Bali, who is following Elias. After being ditched by Elias, Bali then talks to Penelope about the brothers, and she reveals that they all met at university and Leo was interested in her before she met Elias. Elias, the favorite son, got the girl and to be CEO of the family company, whereas poor Leo just got to be filthy rich, not have a real job, and live in paradise. Heartbreaking.
This somehow all leads to Bali needing to get close to Elias and Leo’s mother Audrey (Clare Holman), who has the nerve to be not Greek but instead British. Never has a movie been more interested in multi-species nationality surveys. Penelope sends him a new suit with white pants, as evidently there was a deal at the white pants store, and sneaks him into a party. Bali chats up Audrey, giving yet another story about why he wants to know about Leo, leading with plodding inevitability to Elias noticing Bali and kicking him out. An increasingly frustrated Bali then follows Elias to a dodgy nightclub where he is again found out and this time beaten, on Elias’ orders. Bali is rescued by Babou who, for some reason, has decided to team up with Bali, investigator extraordinaire.
The next morning, Bali considers that he should probably get out of Dodge, but the monks make good coffee so he decides to stay around. Why monks would bring breakfast in bed to a drunk, belligerent American is never made clear, which is a crime against art. Later Bali shows his appreciation for the monks’ kindness and hospitality by throwing a bottle of whiskey against a wall of his room. It was at this point in the movie that I began to desperately crave a version of this movie from the monks’ perspective. I just really need to know how they are doing.
Having had his monk-tastic coffee Bali joins up with Babou. Using their combined, I hesitate to say skills, lead them to wonder how exactly a murderer would have gotten to the isolated island spot where Leo was rock climbing. This feels like something we should have looked into an hour ago, but whatever; I’m not a down-on-my-luck non-Greek PI, so what would I know? The answer is, you’ll be shocked to hear, a boat, more specifically a fishing boat that didn’t record a catch. So our intrepid investigators go in search of said boat, which Babou learns is being hidden by putting it on a ship to The Gambia. Why exactly taking a boat off an island in the Eastern Mediterranean by putting it on a ship to West Africa was the best way to hide this boat, or even why the boat is being hidden and not, IDK, just cleaned is unclear. You are on an island. You already have a boat. There were other options here.
Bali, Babou, and Babou’s non-Greek dog — who is definitely a pet and not a protection dog and looks like his name is probably Mr Snuffles — go to the docks. During the stakeout, Bali and Babou have an interminable conversation about which place names include the word “the.” We are trying to be Pulp Fiction. We are not. The stakeout goes as well as you would expect and Babou gets killed, his faithful non-Greek pup lying poignantly by his side. This is why we don’t take family pets on stakeouts.
Getting Babou killed does, however, lead Bali to learn the truth.*
*eventually.
Spoilers
Bali has Penelope arrange a showdown at the Vardakis’ family mansion. He reveals that not only did the brother kill the other brother but the brother *is* the other brother. Leo killed Elias to steal his life due to jealousy over Penelope and his position as favorite son. Audrey is so shocked by this revelation she pulls a gun she had on her at home for presumably normal reasons and shoots her least favorite son, demonstrating succinctly why Leo has issues in the first place. Bali does his “it’s Chinatown” act and gets on a flight out of Crete only to realize that the truth is not the whole truth. He runs off his flight and goes to confront Penelope, as he has finally clocked that she was in on the murder of Elias from the start. Her deal with Leo went sour when Leo wouldn’t let her leave the family as promised, and she decided to manipulate Bali into revealing Leo’s plan. Families who buy white pants and commit crimes together do not in fact stick together. Bali comes to this conclusion in a flash of self-knowledge that trusting him with an investigation is excellent evidence for someone wanting the investigation to go wrong. Bali ultimately decides not to turn Penelope in for murder because his Dark Past we have alluded to the whole movie is that his wife cheated on him and he considered murdering her lover but instead left the continent. He decides to leave again, this time by boat, so he can monologue some more about Greek myth and call his daughter, presumably to tell her about his day. It’s a feel-good ending about a murderer getting off scot-free and a would-be murderer reconnecting with a young child.
Killer Heat is now available to stream on Amazon Prime.
Clare Griffin is a Brit abroad in the Midwest and, for her sins, a historian of Russia.