Vincent Gallo's strength is his ability to show emotion through his body language and facial expression. As soon as he opens his mouth, he becomes a sub par actor in my opinion. Thankfully Essential Killing plays to Gallo's strength by having him play a character that doesn't have a single line.

Essential Killing is a simple tale of survival that gets a bit muddled because the film poorly uses flashbacks. The majority of the film is just Gallo running around in a winter landscape which is awesome. The interjection of the flashbacks is usually abrupt, and entirely unnecessary because nothing is revealed in the end about the flashbacks. These scenes aren't enough to not recommend the movie, as the majority of Essential Killing is strong film making. However, the flashbacks do affect the pacing of the film enough that I have to knock off a few stars.