Disjointed Digression

Dead Man
Written and Directed by Jim Jarmusch, this is the story of meek account who becomes an outlaw overnight in the old west. Johnny Depp plays the accountant. There are small parts played by John Hurt, Robert Mitchum, Gabriel Byrne, Michael Wincott, Lance Henriksen, Billy Bob Thronton and Crispin Glover. All in Black and White.
I’ve only seen one other movie by Jarmusch and that was Ghost Dog a good movie, but not great imo. Dead Man is an odd film. The story is pretty straight forward, but the telling seems a bit convoluted. Depp turns in a mediocre performance, as does most of the cast. The only exceptions would be John Hurt and Michael Wincott, both of them are very in character and are believable. Even though 121 minutes does not seem long, the film drags on in places. There are spurts of action in among the lulls of odd dialog between Depp’s character and a Native American character called “Nobody”. A few gruesome laughs are thrown in for good measure. I think I wanted to like the film, but in the end I just can’t say that I do. Unless you are a huge Jim Jarmusch fan, or really like Johnny Depp, I’d say it’s best to forget it.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, November 16th, 2005 at 10:31 pm and is filed under Movie Review. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.