"Kiss Me Deadly" is the first installment of a planned spy franchise centered around gay former government agent Jacob Keane (Robert Gant) who can't seem to escape his former life. Keane is a photographer living the family life in Milan with his loving boyfriend Paolo (Nathan Whitaker) and Julia (Alessandra Muir), the daughter he shares with his lesbian friend Kyra (Katherine Kennard). Keane is pulled away from his boyfriend and daughter and back into the world of international espionage when his former partner Marta (Shannen Doherty) reappears after 17 years. With her memory erased, they now must elude a pair of ruthless assassins and a mysterious villain looking to gain classified information at any cost. What ensues is a fast paced game of cat and mouse as Keane must determine who wants them dead, and why.
The story begins on the eve of the fall of the Berlin Wall, as Keane and his partners Marta and Jared (Fraser Brown) are attempting to either get a man out of the country or learn something important from him. But before the assignment is completed there's an explosion and Marta is sent flying, with the mystery man lost in the flames. A few days later Keane learns that the Cold War has ended and he has lost his job. We fast-forward to the present with a montage of major political events moving through Bush, Clinton, another Bush, the World Trade Center attacks and the attacks on the Pentagon.
Keane is now living a comfortable life in Milan as a photographer specializing in rather tacky underwear campaigns. He kisses his assistant and has two of the male models pose together, so we realize rather quickly that Keane is gay. Marta reappears and leaves an urgent message on his answering machine that she is coming to Milan and must see him. He drops the kid off at Kyra’s house and heads to the train station to meet Marta. When he gets there he learns that she has amnesia and is being pursued by an evil thug. From here on the movie is all about learning why Marta can't remember anything and figuring out what Frosty the Hitman and his thug henchman Fredrick (Ian Roberts) are after. Keane has some pieces of the puzzle and must reconnect with his old agency after 20 years of retirement. As he does, he begins to wonder if they may be in on the scheme. He's also not telling Marta everything he knows, which leads her to become suspicious of him--especially when she regains memories of sleeping with him.
Keane kisses his lover goodbye and hits the road with Marta. The action moves to St. Albans, then to London, Zurich, and finally back again to Milan, keeping up a fast pace to make the viewer lose track of the story and overlook some holes in the plot. Along the way there's some gratuitous full-frontal male nudity which is frequently more distracting than anything else. After Keane and Marta leave town, they unearth some secrets and get a few more innocent people killed. It's strange that these super operatives are not very good at deducing the obvious solution to their situation. The climactic fist-fight between Keane and a beefy goon is the most satisfying action of the film, and not just because of the added joy of knowing that these are two strapping gay men wrestling one another to the ground.
"Kiss Me Deadly" is an action-packed spy thriller that has mixed reviews. The action is uneven, and a few of the scenes are so badly shot and edited that they're funny. There's a car chase where neither vehicle looks like it’s going over 15 miles per hour and a car crash where the vehicle suddenly flips over--off-screen. It's almost completely humorless and the characters don't have much electricity or chemistry with one another. But there are a few clever twists and unexpected shocks that keep things from getting too dour. Claude Foisy composed the original music, George Schenck and Frank Cardea wrote the screenplay, and Ron Oliver directed.
