Insomnia File #60: Project Kill (dir by William Girdler)

What’s an Insomnia File? You know how some times you just can’t get any sleep and, at about three in the morning, you’ll find yourself watching whatever you can find on cable or streaming? This feature is all about those insomnia-inspired discoveries!

If you were having trouble getting to sleep last night, you could have always hopped on Tubi and watched the 1976 “thriller,” Project Kill!

In Project Kill, Leslie Nielsen stars as John Trevor, an intelligence agent who has spent six years training a group of men who are regularly given injections of a super soldier serum. As the film begins, Trevor confesses to his second-in-command, Lassiter (Gary Lockwood), that he worries that the men are actually being used as assassins and that the serum is being used as a mind-control drug. Yikes!

When Trevor flees from his secret government base and heads to the Philippines, Lassiter is assigned to track him down and bring him back before he can reveal any government secrets. A crime boss named Alok Lee (Vic Diaz) wants to track down Trevor and learn his mind-control techniques. Trevor, meanwhile, would rather just spend all of his time in bed with Lee Su (Nancy Kwan). Unfortunately, because Trevor took a few doses of the serum himself, he soon finds himself losing control and becoming more and more violent. Lassiter comes to realize that he may not be able to bring back Trevor alive.

Sounds really exciting, doesn’t it?

Well, not quite. I mean, don’t get me wrong. There are plenty of fight scenes and there’s a car chase and the film ends with Trevor and Lassiter having a confrontation on a loading dock that’s about as exciting as a fight between two middle-aged, obviously out-of-shape men could be. Leslie Nielsen’s stunt double puts on a gray hairpiece and shows off some rudimentary karate moves. To give credit where credit is due, the end of the movie features nearly perfect use of slo mo of doom.

(What is slo mo of doom? It’s when the action starts moving in slow motion because someone is about to enter a world of pain. Slo Mo of doom works best when it involves a roundhouse kick and someone yelling, “Noooooooooooooooo!” Admittedly, that doesn’t happen in Project: Kill but still, the movie’s slo mo of doom works well.)

Unfortunately, in between the occasional action sequences, there are endless shots of people just wandering around. The film features so much padding that one almost gets the feeling that the film itself was made up on the spot and director William Girdler’s one direction was, “Keep walking until we get enough footage to push this out to 90 minutes.” As for the plot, I was never quite sure what John Trevor was trying to accomplish in the Philippines.

That said, I think most people are probably going to watch this movie specifically because it was one of the movies that Leslie Nielsen made before he became a beloved comedic icon. This film is from the era when Leslie Nielsen was a dramatic actor. The serious intentions don’t matter though. Nielsen essentially gives the same performance that he gave in The Naked Gun films and it’s impossible not to laugh with him, regardless of how many people he kills. Nielsen plays the role with a straight face, which, of course, was his comedic trademark. Even when he faces off against Lassiter, you expect him to say, “Good luck. We’re all counting on you.”

Project Kill is one of those films where the unintentional laughs save the film.