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Even Cupid Comes to Hit-Men |
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Written by JORDAN BRANDES
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Friday, 22 June 2007 |
The definition of Hollywood cool has changed over the years and based on what I have seen in such films as “Oceans 13” and “Lucky Number Slevin” the less emotion you show the better. This is certainly the case with Ben Kingsley’s new film “You Kill Me” due out July 25th. Though the film deals with some pretty harsh concepts it never once breaks a sweat.
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“You Kill Me”
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 Entertainment
 Art
Released: June 22th
Directed by: John Dahl
Starring: Ben Kingsley, Tea Leoni, Bill Pullman, Dennis Farina
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Director John Dahl takes us into the life of hit-man Frank Falenczyk (Ben Kingsley), Frank works for the Polish mafia in Buffalo, New York. When we first meet him seems to survive on vodka and beer, it is clear within the first 10 minutes of he film that he has a serious drinking problem. This issue becomes even more apparent when, after a night of drinking, he passes out in his car and fails to kill a rival Irish crime boss played quite naturally by Dennis Farina. The Irish it seems are closing in on the polish mafia’s territory and a turf war is brewing among families.
Frank does not know about this because shortly after failing Farina the “family” decides he is better off out of the way. In the typical mafia movie this would mean simply killing him off and being done with it. But this film has some of the nicest crime families in the history of film.
Rather than kill of Frank they decide to ship him off to San Francisco so he can sort his life out and go to AA meetings. His contact in California is a devious and squirrelly real estate agent played by Bill Pullman. In a film about killers and crime families the only person in the film that struck me as being a truly evil person was Pullman. He makes his character so unsavory that you simultaneously admire Pullman for being such a good actor and hate his character with a real passion.
The course of movie changes as Frank meets Laurel (Tea Leoni). Laurel is a middle aged woman who struck me as a bit of an anomaly. From the very start she makes it known that she has very little boundaries and can be wild yet we never really see it till the very end. As with Kingsely’s character they both seem to be playing it neutral just to show how cool they are. The chemistry between Kingsley and Leoni is so natural that it is easy to forget how gruesome some of the topics they discuss actually are.
Overall the movie was extremely lighthearted considering its subject matter and left you with a nice happy feeling. It may not be a love story in the traditional sense, but well worth a trip to the theater. Powered by AkoComment 2.0! |
