C*nt. What a lovely word. Most people of course would prefer the word b*tch. Personally, as someone who swears a lot, b*tch has never been a favorite word of mine. It sounds too offensive and uninteresting. For example, turn around to the person sitting closest to you and call that person a b*tch. Two things could happen; you might get a b*tch-slap from that person or get reported to human resources for misdemeanor. In return, the satisfaction that you get from calling that person a b*tch is not great enough to merit the consequences. Now walk up to another person and call him/her a cunt. Chances are the person might not realise that you have just insulted him/her and even if he/she does, its not that great of an insult to warrant a slap. So you’re safe. And now utter the word cunt again under your breath. Doesn’t that sound good? Say it again, one more time. Doesn’t it sound better than b*tch? 

Now, if you think that the usage of this word couldn’t get any better, then try imagining an 11-year old girl uttering that word before slicing and dicing a bunch of junkies. Well that, my friends, is ‘Kick-Ass’. A movie so vulgar and immoral that it has become everybody’s favorite film of the year. If you have not heard of this film before, it’s probably due to the lack of marketing as it is not backed by any major production studio. The movie is directed by Matthew Vaughn, who was able to raise enough funds at a dinner event to finance this project after all the major studios have profusely rejected him. You see, studio executives are always breathing down the director’s neck and telling them to do this and that because at the end of the day, what they want to see is revenue and profit. In terms of ‘Kick-Ass’, the script that was given to the studios is full of obscenities and that the only way the movie could ever be released is if MPAA slaps it with an R rating. An R-rated movie simply means a decline in expected revenue for the studio as children, parents and more conservative adults will avoid the film. Thus, these studio execs have actually asked Vaughn to tone the movie down so that it may get a PG-13 rating for the mass-market. Instead of bowing down to these cunts, Vaughn decides to fund the movie himself and directs it the way he sees fit. Hardly do we ever hear a director having such freedom in his movie-making and without taking money into account. Amazingly, the movie works!

Although ‘Kick-Ass’ gives plenty of nods to the superhero movies of old, it is in no direct way a spoof of any of those. The story is original and fresh, which is based on the comic book of the same name that was written by Mark Millar and John Romita Jr. Never heard of it? That’s probably because the comic itself is still new on the shelves, with the screenplay for the film having being written concurrently with the comic-book. It’s a story that answers one of the most intriguing questions ever about superheroes; why hasn’t anyone out there attempts to be one? Enter Dave Lizewski (Aaron Johnson), your typical teenage Jewish nerd who spends his time after school at the local comic-book store, buried underneath piles of Superman, Batman, Spiderman and X-Men comics. He sometimes ponders as to why nobody out there bothers to pick up a costume and tries to make the world a better place by getting rid of thieves, muggers and general troublemakers. Obviously, our little hero tries this out after purchasing a wetsuit on e-Bay. The result, however, was not as he intended once he ends up in the hospital after his first crime-fighting, but the boy didn’t give up there. After several more outings, he finally comes face to face with the real deal: Hit-Girl (Chloe Grace Moretz), and her guardian angel, Big Daddy (Nicholas Cage). No, these two do not have superpowers but their prowess in battle is nothing short of splendid. Big Daddy sports an outfit that resembles closely to Batman’s but with firearms instead of non-existent gadgets. Hit-Girl, the aforementioned 11-year old spear-wielding lass is like a miniature version of The Bride and Go-Go Yubari combined. This father and daughter pair are both after drug criminal Frank D’amico (Mark Strong) and Dave, whose superhero name is Kick-Ass, gets entangled in the process after associating himself with Frank’s own superhero son, Red Mist (Christopher Mintz-Plasse).

Honestly, I didn’t know what to expect from the movie. The trailers weren’t that impressive to me. I didn’t bother with the plethora of film clips and TV spots available on the net either. What caught my attention on the movie was that Empire magazine gave it a 5-star rating. Although Empire frequently gives 5-stars to truly deserving movies, it does astonished me that they would give such rating to an unimpressive looking flick which at first appears to be a spoof of superhero movies. However, that rating made me curious and now, I have seen the movie twice in the theatre. The best thing about the film is how it’s a serious action drama masking itself as a comedy.  Yes, you will be laughing your asses off throughout the film but you won’t be laughing at fart jokes. No sir, instead you will be laughing at the absurdity of a father shooting his daughter at point blank range with a bullet that travels 700mph. You will be laughing when a criminal literally explodes in an industrial microwave. You will be laughing at the antiques of Hit-Girl whose language and actions are far too mature for her age. Thus, you get the best of both worlds, so to speak. All the college humor are also present, but we’re not talking about the kind of jokes you hear in ‘American Pie VIII’. Most of the jokes in this film are in reference to previous comic book movies and these are really good jokes that will make you laugh very hard. For instance, when Kick-Ass asked Hit-Girl how he could contact her, her response was, “You just contact the Mayor’s office. He has a special signal that shines in the sky. It’s in the shape of a giant cock.”

At the same time, what first starts off as pure comedy slowly evolves into something more serious once you have all the protagonists, antagonists and everyone else in between in the mix. As humorous as he may seem, Frank D’amico represents the more grave aspect of the film. A kingpin of the drug underworld, Frank has dozens of armed henchmen at his disposals and he himself will not think twice to pull the trigger at a mere stranger on the streets. But having his goons being gunned down mysteriously and maliciously by young costumed heroes gave him a lighter side, which is usually absent from your average comic-book villains, or villains in general. This also shows that Mark Strong himself has a softer side. He is officially the go-to bad guy in Hollywood these days, and it’s good to know that he is very versatile and not just cocooned to the extremely vicious and no-joke bad guy that he frequents. And although Big Daddy may look funny in a Batman-like outfit, there is nothing funny about his actions, especially in the factory-cam scene. Big Daddy is someone you wish Batman will turn to but never will. He doesn’t torture, humiliate nor threaten. He kills. My only regret with Big Daddy is that I wish there was more of him. Then, we have Hit-Girl, the little girl whom I have completely fallen in love with.  She is the star of the show, as you have read in every single review. Her acting is brilliant. Her language is improper for her age but cute. Her fighting skills are purely awesome as she is fierce. In short, she is such a doll! You’re just left gawking after every single one of her fight scenes (3 in total), secretly hoping for more. As for the titular character, he played his role well, I guess. He is incompetent in his fighting abilities but that is what we expect from him; an average Joe trying to be a superhero. I wouldn’t change him for anything more. And it was smart how the whole movie was not solely focused on him or it would have rather been boring. The same also applies to Chris D’amico aka Red Mist, a friendless geek who decides to help his father in tracking down Kick-Ass by masking up as a superhero himself. He is played by that dude McLovin from Superbad. Both Kick-Ass and Red Mist shares a particular scene together in the Mist Mobile, with the song ‘Crazy’ by Knarls Barkley playing. That scene was funny as hell.

To top it all, the movie has a very interesting soundtrack. There are instrumental superhero themes that were probably taken from other movies and there are vocalized tracks which may have been written for the film, or not. And this is what I like about the movie, how when Hit-Girl brutally slashes her way through hordes of bad men, the song in the background goes something like this, la-la-la la-la-la-la la-la-la-la la-la-la-la. It gives a lighter touch to the otherwise sadistic nature of the fight scenes, to remind everyone that she is indeed a little kid. Basically, the movie is just freaking good. Please do yourself a favor and watch this in the cinema (don’t worry, it’s not censored), as this is probably one of the first time I am writing a review for a movie that is still showing in cinemas nationwide. I am praying for a sequel but I do hope that Vaughn is able to make a follow-up without the studios interfering, just like how he pulled this one off. It just goes to show how brilliant a director can be if he is given the creative freedom and without interference from these greedy cunts. But looking at the declining box-office numbers, I shouldn’t be too optimistic. Whatever it is, at least I have lived long enough to see Kick-Ass because this movie simply kicks ass!!!

Great cast, great laugh, great story and great action. What else are you c*nts waiting for?

Fazil apologises for his sexist remarks in the first paragraph. He is currently dealing with a real c*nt…and not getting any.