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You Kill Me
Ben Kingsley and T??a Leoni make an unlikely couple in this blackly comic hitman-based romance from the director of The Last Seduction and Red Rock West
Alcoholism, the death of a parent and warfare between rival crime syndicates - an irresistible cocktail of ingredients if you're aiming to make a rib-tickling comedy. Astonishingly this works wonderfully in John Dahl's triumphant return to the world of off-kilter thrillers, in which he made his name in the 1990s. Ben Kingsley is Frank; a sloppy hitman based in freezing Buffalo. He is only kept on as he's quite literally family to the local Mob boss Uncle Roman (Baker Hall). With his goatee beard, piercing eyes and knitted hat, Kingsley resembles the villain in a festive panto based on the first Dexys Midnight Runners album. If you thought John Travolta was a dopey contract killer in Pulp Fiction, then check out Frank, who is first seen tossing bottles of vodka into the snow until they're cold enough to drink before dozing off in his car while staking out a train station, entirely missing his target's arrival. Roman wastes no time doing what all Mob bosses do with underlings who have displeased them and banishes Frank to an Alcoholics Anonymous group in San Francisco. Here, local contact Dave (Pullman) demonstrates his clout by securing Frank an apartment and a job carrying out cosmetic work on corpses down at the morgue. Frank's not the most forthcoming of new recruits at the AA meetings. Kingsley wordlessly conveys what's going through Frank's head during a parade of gut-wrenching admissions of failure and self-loathing from the group. With arms welded shut across his chest Frank looks about as comfortable as Davros at a speed-dating event. The movie goes from background-building skits into full plot with the arrival the recently bereaved Laurel (Leoni). With no attempt to pretend that Laurel and Frank are anything other than made for each other, we are saved from a lot of dreary wooing, arguing and eventual surrender into each others' arms. Frank invites Laurel for coffee during her father's funeral; so she knows precisely what kind of man she's getting. From here the film is a quirky charm-fest with Frank steadily defrosting through his burgeoning romance. The script avoids cliches and Kingsley delivers an astonishing balancing act of a performance. If there is a downside it's the slowly ticking Mob war between Roman and crime rival O'Leary (Farina) creeping in to provide an inevitable finale, which only serves to make you wonder why we are rooting for one bunch of morally bankrupt killers over another. The only answer being that they're the ones the camera's been on for the film's duration. Verdict A great cast and a great script make this a surprising recommendation as a first date movie. |
