Director Shu Lea Cheang's Fresh Kill is a typically Godardian pastiche of formal experimentation; abstract, occasionally pretentious speechifying; Marxist critiques of Western consumerism; and a laboriously inclusive plea for minority solidarity. The film's thin plot concerns the struggle of a pair of class-conscious lesbians—Sarita Choudhoury (Mississippi Masala, Kama Sutra) and Erin McMurtry—as they struggle against a nefarious multinational corporation that is somehow involved with tainted food that has the unfortunate side effect of turning whoever eats it a glowing shade of green. Always stylish, sometimes visually stunning, but never really amounting to anything cohesive or substantial, Fresh Kill at times seems like a spiritual descendant of Lizzie Borden's influential, incoherent Trotskyite tract Born In Flames, which also concerned good-hearted, multicultural lesbians locked in eternal combat with a power structure controlled by white, balding men in suits. But it's far less strident and heavy-handed, and therefore far easier to watch. Still, Fresh Kill suffers from a lack of recognizable or sympathetic characters: Choudhoury, the film's ostensible heroine and biggest star, lacks warmth and dramatic depth here, while the other characters seem to function as little more than mouthpieces for the film's alternately arch and cloying monologues. While artfully crafted, Fresh Kill is too confused and disjointed to be anything but a well-intentioned, intermittently interesting failure.