Uma Thurman and Samuel L. Jackson were both in Quentin Tarantino’s 1994 masterpiece “Pulp Fiction,” but they didn’t share any screen time. A decade later, Jackson had a brief but memorable cameo as Rufus the keyboardist at the wedding of Thurman’s Beatrix in “Kill Bill: Volume 2.” In Nicol Panoe’s Tarantino-esque black comedy “The Kill Room,” we’re finally able to enjoy a feature-length showcase of the bloody good chemistry between Thurman and Jackson, who are magnificent together as a pair of schemers from very different walks of life whose money-laundering enterprise grows even darker — and funnier — as we go along.
The pretentious bubble of the contemporary art world practically begs for satire, as evidenced by films such as “Velvet Buzzsaw,” “Untitled,” “Intouchables,” “The Square” and the recent “Life Upside Down,” and “The Kill Room” follows in that tradition with a pointed screenplay by Jonathan Jacobson that skewers art dealers who claim to be above it all but are desperate to make a profit; narcissistic and petulant artists — and the sometimes clueless moneybag collectors who speak like overbearing graduate students but are mostly concerned with gobbling up works by the latest new name on the scene.
Thurman looks and sounds every inch the movie star in a glowing, funny and sharp performance as Patrice, who owns a small and struggling gallery in Manhattan. Patrice has zero employees and must rely heavily on her highly animated and filter-free intern Leslie (a very funny Amy Keum) just to get through the day. Meanwhile, Patrice’s star artist Grace (Thurman’s daughter, Maya Hawke) is losing it because Patrice isn’t selling her work and isn’t getting her any social media buzz, and her successful art gallery rival Anika (Dree Hemingway) revels in Patrice’s failures.
It seems all but certain Patrice will have to close the gallery — and that’s when luck and screenplay contrivance enter the room, in the form of Samuel L. Jackson’s Gordon, the owner of the Neptune Bakery & Deli, which is a front for his real business, violent crime. Through a mutual colleague, Gordon has heard of Patrice’s situation, and he has a proposition that involves Gordon handing Patrice piles of cash and Patrice then cutting checks to Gordon to purchase horrible artwork created by Gordon’s top hitman, Reggie (Joe Manganiello). It will be a “clean” exchange, wink wink. “Are you really mansplaining money laundering to me?” says Patrice, who is initially dismissive but quickly decides to go along with the plan.
Things take an unexpected — well, not all that unexpected — turn when the awful paintings by “The Bagman” attract the attention of wealthy collectors and an influential critic (Debi Mazar). Even as Reggie goes about his day job of assassin-for-hire, he’s on the verge of becoming quite famous — which is not the ideal situation for a criminal front.
The final few scenes of “The Kill Room” stretch the satiric premise to the breaking point, but by then we’re content to go along with the ride and enjoy the dark humor and the fine work of the entire cast, led by Jackson and Thurman in twin knockout performances.
