Khali, the Killer – Leben und sterben in East L.A. (2017)

Khali, the Killer – Leben und sterben in East L.A.: Directed by Jon Matthews. With Ryan Dorsey, Richard Cabral, Clayton Cardenas, Corina Calderon. An East L.A. hit man decides to take one last job before retiring to help support his ailing grandmother’s end of life care. But everything falls apart when he develops empathy for his last target and has to make the toughest decision.

“The creators clearly intended to defy the vieweru0026#39;s expectations. When we first see the hit-man title character, he is coldly executing a set of enemies, but minutes later we see him carjacked by a suburbanite teenager, still later getting mistaken for a child molester while looking for his vehicle, and not long afterwards even losing his nerve stalking a pathetically easy target. We know him to have acted ruthlessly, but heu0026#39;s emotionally undone by seeing his grandmother slip into dementia. He self-identifies as a Hispanic East Angelino (i.e., East L.A.), but the only complete sentences he can speak in Spanish are the corny pick-up lines he addresses to his estranged wife. Richard Cabral proves himself a viable leading man, consistently watchable and believable as a desperate but selectively compassionate man, and many of the smaller roles are resourcefully cast. There is blessedly little visual distraction, the director having chosen ready-made locations and somehow having shot a 90-minute movie in less than three weeks. Plot-wise, you could argue that that wrap-up is implausibly tidy (and that technique-wise a few film edits arenu0026#39;t so tidy) but, again, the performances and the uncanny balance of realism and observational comedy is what holds our interest. And after watching, youu0026#39;ll likely avoid tangling with anyone driving a light blue Hyundai.”