Things To Do In Denver When You're Dead
Number 1: Get Out of Town
Jimmy the Saint tried to go straight when he got out of prison.
True, his business venture - videotaping messages to be played
for loved ones after the client has died - is a trifle distasteful,
even exploitative. But it wasn't against the law, and Jimmy was
really trying to be a good citizen.
Unfortunately, business wasn't that good. He's had to borrow money
to stay afloat, which forces him to take on One Last Job when
his marker was called in by his wheelchair-bound former mob boss,
The Man with the Plan (busy Christopher Walken, once again called
upon to do what he does best: act weird). It seems that ever since
The man with the Plan's son's girlfriend dumped him, Junior's
gone off the deep end in a big way. The Man wants Jimmy to scare
off the girlfriend's fiancee, so that Junior will have a clear
field.
The job seems simple enough, but Jimmy shows more loyalty than
good sense by hiring on his old gang to help him out. Things get
screwed up in a big way, and now Jimmy and his pals have to get
away from Denver before The Man's hitmen catch up with them. The
trouble is, there's just so much business to be taken care of
first, and nobody ever seems to be able to leave.
This is the second film of the year from a script by Scott Rosenberg,
the other being the wistful Beautiful Girls. He again proves
himself adept at constructing entertaining dialogue - while occasionally
running the risk of destroying his credibility, it's easy to forgive
his indulgences in the face of such truly witty lines. This is
also a defining trait of the best pulp fiction, where such writers
as Robert Leslie Bellum excelled at coming up with fresh language
to describe common events.
Both films deal with characters who are trying to stick to their
own principals while walking the line between forces of chaos
and order. The material is much easier to swallow within the familiar
setting of a group of small town twentysomethings than it is in
the grotesque, sometimes cartoonish world he creates here. Lacking
the experience necessary to tackle a serious underworld story
(I assume he isn't cranking out screenplays on prison stationery),
Rosenberg opts to get playful with the material instead. I can't
really fault the guy for not pulling a few stick-ups in the name
of research.
Yet with Beautiful Girls, we're given a comfortable environment
in which to enjoy the story, and a safe atmosphere is provided
by director Ted Demme. In Things to Do in Denver When Your
Dead, we're entering a skewed, dangerous environment, and
director Gary Fleder fails to set the proper off-kilter atmosphere
until we're already in neck deep. It's not totally his fault -
the story's too relentlessly gloomy to carry its satirical elements
steadily - but audiences appreciate it if you let them in on the
gags a little earlier on, so they don't feel cheated later. The
idea of using clips from Jimmy's Afterlife Advice clients as commentary
on the action was a good one, but it's not taken far enough, and
gets tangled up with old timer Jack Warden's mob lingo annotations
- more of one or the other might have provided more structure.
The main point of difficulty here is the choice of Andy Garcia
as the heart of the movie. Garcia is a talented performer, and
he plays Jimmy with great sensitivity, but he is severely lacking
in likeability and personality. Audiences are not on his side
from the his first scene, so it's difficult to invest much interest
in what happens to him. Here, he's the best I've ever seen him,
yet it takes almost the entire film before I began to care about
his character, and by then it's way too late. This also makes
his romance with Gabrielle Anwar a tough sell - it's just too
hard to believe that she would fall for him even halfway, especially
after she learns that he's a crook. Her character is just too
smart to go for his phony line. Garcia is doing some fine acting,
but this film needs a much stronger lead to carry the story, and
unfortunately, he doesn't quite get the job done.
The rest of the cast fares much better, adding a lot to the narrative.
Fairuza Balk, a long way from the Kansas of her debut in Return
to Oz, adds pathos as the young hooker who wants to have Jimmy's
baby. William Forsythe, as the tattooed "Franchise"
who only wants to provide for his poor family, and Christopher
Lloyd as the crumbling porn projectionist "Pieces" (is
it my imagination or is Lloyd beginning to look more and more
like Lance Henriksen?), add heart to their roles. And Steve Buscemi
fairly stops the show with his Mr. Shhsh character - a deadly
super-assassin who looks like Don Knotts circa 1962 in his plain
blue suit and hat. I wouldn't mind seeing another film featuring
this character. His showdown with Treat Williams as the decidedly
insane "Critical Bill" is the high point of the picture.
While flawed, Things to Do in Denver When You're Dead tries
hard and frequently hits its intended targets, making it a decent
enough entry in the neo-pulp cinema category.
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Written by Brian Thomas