Protraph Lack of good storyline.

Marketic It's no definitive masterpiece but it's damn close.

KnotStronger This is a must-see and one of the best documentaries - and films - of this year.

Allison Davies The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

dweebcentric After hearing reports of a quadruple homicide in the neighboring town on the radio, a handful of people at a diner in a dead end town wonder if the mysterious, short-tempered man (Michael Madsen) who arrives shortly afterwards is the killer. Things are far from what they seem. Though a tense thriller, thanks to the advantage of a cramped setting (everything happens in one night at the diner), it is somewhat uneven, suffering from poorly developed characters (like the police officer) and underscored situations. Still, 'The Killing Jar' is saved by good acting and an intriguing story, and fans of Michael Madsen, who appears in usual form as the unhinged weirdo, are sure to enjoy this one.

bob_meg The Killing Jar has one of those scripts that is almost too perfect. It recalls iron-clad thrillers like Ira Levin's "Deathtrap" and David Mamet's "House of Games" with its no-detail-is-too-minor subtleties. And it even brought to mind shades of Mark Medak's "When You Comin' Back Red Ryder?" And then there are the Tarantino influences....Look, any script that can rarely veer outside of one location for an hour and a half and still keep your attention is doing something right, but film-fest fave Mark Young's The Killing Jar, save for a few bad MINOR character performances (Danny Trejo phoning it in as Danny Trejo is the most obvious), does practically everything right.It's late one night at a local diner in a no name redneck town, and all the locals are there, killing time. A report comes on the radio about a mass-murder in the next town over. When an anonymous stranger (Michael Madsen) arrives with a surly, stand-offish attitude, they gradually begin to suspect he's the perpetrator.What follows is an elaborate set of mind games and mental torture that reminded me favorably of "Ryder" in their intimate intensity, interspersed with a lot of sudden violence and gore. I liked how violent this movie was. It drove home the immediacy of the character's peril, fit with the script's over-arching theme, and looked very real...the blood is dark red and there are buckets of it...very similar to how it was used in Tarantino's classic Reservoir Dogs.That smacks of homage, as does the casting of Michael Madsen, who is playing, for better or worse, Mr. Blonde again. But you know what? I didn't care. The dude is good, and he has that role down pat. What surprised me were the alluring performances by the rest of the cast, most notably Amber Benson (who even contributes the closing song). She plays Noreen, a waitress who's drawn painfully true-to-life. Something in Ms. Benson's facial expressions and delivery really sell you on the goodness of her intentions and she's the badly needed anchor for this film. Harold Perrineau and Kevin Gage also provide solid support within difficult-to-pull-off multi-layered characters.The Killing Jar keeps you guessing and is ultimately very satisfying. It feels like a very well-written stage play. It deserves your attention, especially if you like character-driven suspense films.

TheHrunting "The Killing Jar": the "jar" being a small town diner and the "killing" being people trapped inside with their fate up to a gunman. This begins by familiarizing the audience with these simple town folk just out for a late night bite at their favorite greasy eatery with jukebox, stifling heat and cheap prices. After hearing a radio broadcast about four murders of a husband, wife and their two children, the patrons--couple, waitress, deputy, cook, truck driver and passer through--speak their disgust but go about their business and shoot the breeze.You get the hardened boss (Danny Trejo), who's overshot vocal tone and miscued body language indicate he quickly filmed some scenes at different times than who he's interacting with. The young couple aimlessly use a video camera and talk about idle dreams. The most natural and credible performance is by the passer through (Harold Perrineau), who is a salesman that just wants to get back home but he'll need a strong cup of brew. The truck driver and deputy keep it familiar as if this is the same routine. A Rockabilly type (Michael Madsen) eventually enters. He's demanding and acts suspicious, which upsets the waitress and causes the deputy to get into a threatening confrontation, which sends Madsen's character over the edge. He can go from spaced-out, henchmen-confident to sympathetic and unsure but not always clenching the transition in between to make it all credible. The moment he storms back in with a shotgun, you lean forward in your seat for hopefully the real start of the adventure.The rest tries to maintain an intrigue and build up to a twist ending, though apart from a few abrupt and bloody deaths it feels like one giant tedious string along without a major purpose or relatable reward, with the exception of the simple but capable waitress being offered the opportunity and courage to get out of the rut she's at in the restaurant and in her life. However, with everything padded and piled around her to equally get coverage of everybody else, she's not consistently at the focal point of attention to realize this till the latter portion. The gunman kills for no apparent reason other than being provoked. All of a sudden he gains some kind of higher righteousness and uses a skill-set from a past profession to interrogate the patrons and a revelation comes out about the news report involving the murdered family.On paper this reads like a good idea to produce a low budget movie concentrated on story and characters than one-liners, extravagant sets and location changes. But since the film is so claustrophobic, the flow, character interaction and direction tried to continually throw off the cinemaphile who studies all the details and tries to figure out the puzzle beforehand, though it did the opposite as it didn't fluidly come together to put the audience in the direct moment or believably rationalize with their motivations enough to wholly care that this could actually happen where innocents are being killed in this far away place. It shows how much some filmmakers are willing to go to guard their secret twist, even at the expense of the rest of the picture. It also didn't help that they tried to clash quirkiness and sarcasm amongst sentimental moments, such as Jake Busey's character looking laughably tacky with a weaselly grin mixed with pseudo introspective shots that pan around the diner possibly to throw the scent off. "The Killing Jar" had the right ideas going in, just some of the wrong execution as the flow came in and out in waves. (Also submitted on http://fromblacktoredfilmreviews.blogspot.com/)

Wizard-8 Any movie that boasts amongst its actors Michael Madsen, Danny Trejo, and Jake Busey definitely gets some points of merit even before the movie starts rolling. Though those points aren't as much as you might think, because Trejo's part is small and very insignificant, and Busey's role isn't that much better. I also had some other problems with the movie. The photography is pretty bad, with dark and muddy colors throughout. Also, the movie takes a LONG time to get going - more than a third of the movie goes by, to be more exact. Still, I will admit that once the movie gets going, the rest of the movie is fairly compelling - though I had a good idea of how the movie was going to end some time before that ending actually played out. So there aren't exactly any surprises to be found in this movie. However, I will admit that I have seen far worse direct-to-DVD movies.