Kill on Wheels is a Hungarian flick about a couple of wheelchair-using guys who become friends with the mysterious Rupasov (Szabolcs Thuróczy), who has recently been released from prison. He is also a wheelchair user, and he offers the guys the chance to make some money. Little do they know that the job is helping him carry out his job as a hitman.
The film deals with disability, but without any of the “suffering” bullshit you get far too often in Hollywood films. The actors who portray the characters also have the disabilities they have on-screen in real life, something the otherwise excellent Good Time could’ve done but didn’t for bullshit reasons. It’s not some radical statement, but in the this day and age it’s still so rare for disabled people to actually get cast that is looks radical. When the Safdie brothers cast Good Time, they decided against casting somebody with a learning disability because they felt it was “morally wrong.”
In Kills on Wheels, the protagonists Zolika (Zoltán Fenyvesi) and Barba (Ádám Fekete) talk like normal young men and are interested in girls, there is a long-running joke about Barba constantly spraying deodorant because you never know when you might meet chicks. They are making a comic book about their exploits with Rupasov, which culminates in an annoyingly predictable twist. The biggest inconvenience is Zolika’s absent father now wanting to get involved and pay for his life-saving surgery, but that’s handled relatively well, and for the most part it takes a backseat to the fun genre thrills of Rupasov killing people for the mob.
It’s certainly not perfect, but Kills on Wheels is a fun ride without (for the most part) the suffering-porn that films dealing with disability too often relish in. The performances from the three main actors are excellent, and hopefully off the back of this film they can get more work. The film’s director, Attila Till (what a name!) based the characters on people he met during his experiences working a volunteer for disabled people, and that probably contributes to its authentic feel in regards to how disabled people are portrayed.
The disc’s only feature is the theatrical trailer, which is a shame, because interviews with the cast and the director would have been very welcome.
★★★½
Ian Schultz
psychotroniccinema.com 