In a strange way, John Dahl’s You Kill Me resembles what
a painstakingly extended version of one of the short-films in
Jim Jarmusch’s 2003 effort, Coffee and Cigarettes,
might’ve turned out like. Similarities between the two pictures
are eerily numerous: they’re both about clever people dealing
with substance-addiction as they meanwhile spout out acerbically
constructed dialogue pertaining to their quirky lives. But
whereas no one segment of Coffee and Cigarettes lasted
more than ten minutes—and this length was pushing it
several instances—You Kill Me drones on for nearly ninety
minutes.
The movie
practically drowns in its own cleverness by the time it reaches
its second act; what opens up as a gimmicky showcase for some
fine acting quickly turns into a cloyingly annoying melodrama
that the casual viewer will feel tempted to get up and scream
“Enough already!” at as it occupies the screen. Ben Kingsley
plays Frank, a Buffalo, New York-based hit-man who develops a
chronic drinking problem that begins to interfere with his work.
His boss sends him to San Francisco to clean up his act, where
he meets trusted Alcoholics Anonymous-Member Tom (Luke Wilson)
and Love Interest Laurel (Tea Leoni). The trio’s journeys seem
pleasant enough on the surface, but once we realize that they
aren’t headed anywhere and exist in a land of pure
inconsequence, the “How clever are we!?” attitude of writers
Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely’s script becomes
overbearing and drab.
In the end,
You Kill Me does have a bit to say about friendships and
addictions, but this commentary gets lost in the shuffle of the
picture’s grander narrative relentlessness. Frank is a quirky
and pleasant character, but Markus and McFeely make the mistake
of confusing these traits for ones that actually have the
ability to interest and engage the audience. Had ‘ol Jim
Jarmusch waited three years to release Coffee and Cigarettes,
maybe he would have been able to team up with director Dahl and
stick alcoholic Frank into that film instead of this one. As it
stands, Jarmusch will just have to watch the character’s
misadventures in You Kill Me alongside the rest of us
casual moviegoers, rolling his eyes at the misconstrued
self-importance of the material.
-Danny Baldwin,
Bucket Reviews
Review Published
on: 8.3.2007
Screened on:
8.1.2007 at the UltraStar Flower
Hill 4 in Del Mar, CA.
You Kill Me is rated R and runs 92
minutes.
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