Millennium Entertainment  Killing Season  Killing Season
Comments (0)  Mark Steven Johnson's Killing Season is a hard
movie to take seriously, which is particularly unfortunate since
it deals with such weighty issues as genocide, the ethical
compromises that everyone makes in combat, and the lingering
effects of wartime decisions on participants years down the
line. If this sounds like heavy stuff, it is, and Johnson makes
sure that we understand that he, at least, views the material
with the utmost gravity, opening his film with a Bosnian War-set
sequence of grotesque images—emaciated dead bodies,
concentration camp prisoners, firing squads—all shot in a gritty
“realist” style.  But the film then cuts to the present day, and
instead of high drama, we're offered something approaching high
camp, though there's every reason to believe that Killing Season
isn't in on the joke. After obtaining a file from a black
marketer, former Serbian soldier Emil Kovac (John Travolta) goes
from Belgrade to the Tennessee woo