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Artists in Agony: Hitmen at the Coda Teahouse
USA 2021
produced by Kenneth Lui, Mariana Lui for Mental Pictures
directed by Kenneth Lui
starring Jason Frost, Kate Huffman, Melanee Nelson, Ariadne Shaffer, Pall McQueen, David Mitchell, Rick Rico, Courtney Sara Bell, Craig Harrison, Danny Gonzalez, Julian Shah-Tayler (voice), Chance Hand, Ken Breding, Paul Byrne, Ryan Egnatoff, Chris Ellerby, Liz Fenning, David Goryl, Patrick Hancock, Freddy Harris, Liesl Jackson, Frank Kitchin, Mariana Lui, Darren Mangler, Joanna Mercedes, Joshua Moore, Sebastian Noxx, Aidan Park, Tara Platt, Zoran Radanovich, Karlito Sanders, James See, John See, Anne-Marie Symons, Glenn Takakjian, Beverly Velázquez, Jobeth Wagner, Marshall Watson, Max E. Williams, Annie Wolf
written by Kenneth Lui
review by Mike Haberfelner
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There's a special breed of assassins out there who take pride to their
work and do it out of passion, who call themselves "artists" -
complete with their own fanclubs and everything. And at the infamous Coda
Teahouse Massacre, no less than four artists were killed, Frosty (Jason
Frost), Lady Faith (Kate Huffman), Lucien Mercy (Ariadne Shaffer) and Red
Rick (Pall McQueen) - them and 17 other people, guests and personell alike
and even a documentary film crew. For years, how this actually started has
remained a mystery, but now footage that above film crw has taken has
turned up - and it seems they've been following all four above artists
around and documented the days leading up to the massacre. It tells the
story about Red Rick, who after years of lying to his wife that he's an
air purefyer salesman has finally found the courage to confess the truth
about his profession - and she's so turned on by this that she makes him
teach her how to become a hitwoman ... up to the point where she would
ditch him and become Lady Faith, one of the best in the business. It also
tells the tale of Frosty, whose partner has just been killed, and who has
lately seen a decline in hits as they're stolen by one Scorpio (David
Mitchell). But when he goes to kill Scorpio, he instead makes him his
partner. And there's also Lucien, whose sister Angel (Melanee Nelson) was
to kill their dad's killer, but instead she has fallen in love with him.
The sisters break up - and then Lucien falls in love with her latest mark
(Rick Rico), and eventually her husband (Danny Gonzalez) finds out. And
somehow all these stories converge, and it doesn't sit good with anybody
that Frosty, Lucien and Rick all claim they have killed Rockstar, the one
true legend in the assassin game. So when they meet in the teahouse, a
shoot-out is almost inevitable ...
Of course, this film is at least somehow reminiscent of the Belgian
serialkiller mockumentary classic Man Bites Dog, but mostly in
theme and rather macabre brand of humour - and if your sense of humour's
rather on the dark side, you're very likely to find Artists in Agony
very funny -, story- and stylewise, the movie at hand comes into its own
very quickly, managing to juggle and ultimately tie up several narrative
threads, telling several stories along the way that all manage to keep the
audience engaged, while garnering the thing with enough satire and social
commentaryn to go beyond a just laugh-out-loud comedy approach - all of
which is making this into a very entertaining and totally enjoyable movie.
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review © by Mike Haberfelner
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Robots and rats,
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