Kills On Wheels (2016)

Thoroughly Entertaining Hungarian Wheelchair-Based Action Thriller

Here's something different, and if you fancy a change from the usual Hollywood multiplex fare this is well worth checking out. Attila Till's gritty, brutal and yet ultimately uplifting thriller is getting a dual format release from Eureka.

Best friends Zoli (Zoltan Fenyvesi) and Barba (Adam Fekete) both suffer from congenital physical developmental abnormalities that mean they spend their dull days in a long-term rehabilitation facility. Zoli needs life saving surgery because his spine is starting to curve to such an extent that his internal organs are beginning to crush one another. 

Zoli's long-absent father is willing to pay for the operation but Zoli doesn't want him to. Enter wheelchair-bound hit man Rupasov (Szabolcs Thiroczy, looking like an older Jeremy Renner) who has just been released from prison and who still has connections to various crime syndicates. He has a scheme to help make Zoli the money he needs - by the two friends helping him bump off the hits he gets assigned. 

Gritty and grim, and pulling no punches as regards the abilities (and disabilities) of its three leads, KILLS ON WHEELS does a marvellous job of giving centre stage to the kind of characters that are too often only on the sidelines in movies, if present at all.  

A lot of the PR for KILLS ON WHEELS calls it a comedy. I didn't find much of it very funny, which is not to do the film down at all - it's really very good indeed - but don't go in expecting barrels of wheelchair-based laughs or you're going to be disappointed. 

Refreshingly uncategorisable, the film swings from downbeat to funny to blood-soaked to incredibly emotionally warm and moving by turns with never a mis-step. Eureka's disc only has the trailer as an extra but don't let that put you off getting this - I wouldn't be at all surprised if this turns up on best of lists in years to come, although best what I'll leave to the list compilers to decide.

Attila Till's KILLS ON WHEELS is out on dual format DVD & Blu-ray from Eureka on Monday 15th January 2017