Living & Dying: Will Anyone Actually Study Quentin Tarantino's Movies?
Edward Furlong quotes Saint Bernard of Clairvaux in his 2006 HBO Video release "Living & Dying".
The road to hell is paved with good intentions."
That maybe the best way to describe this production.
Nadia and Sam will do anything to get her daughter back from her rich ex-husband, so to come up with the fiscal resources to win custody, they attempt to rob a bank that serves as a criminal's pay roll office. The robbery goes well, but the cops arrive sooner than expected. This results in Nadia being wounded in a fire fight forcing them to take refuge in a cafe across the street.
With no escape plan, they are easy prey for the two psychotics who happened to be dining at the restaurant. Now it is up to Sam to resolve this before the cops or the nuts kill everyone.
Conceptually, "Living & Dying" seems very strong. It has a clever twist on the heist going wrong formula, but the script continues to try and be clever. It ends up leading to the negative result of being too clever. That result means it becomes too stupid.
And the cast seems to realize how dumb the tale becomes. None of the performances seem genuine, but when the casting attempted to be clever (South African star Arnold Vosloo and Turkish actress Yelda Reynaud as Texan detectives) what do you expect. Michael Madsen as a villain provides some relief, but his character is as disposable as the film.
The script keeps everyone guessing about what it wants to be. At least in a drama, you cannot have a "What makes a great mom" conversation that is followed with a brutal rape. You cannot have comical segments with the detectives followed by an irrational hostage execution. And at no point can a drama resort to body humor as a twist.
Lets go back to the rape sequence. Why? Because it was the only thing shot well. If you are taking on film noir without a budget, watch "Reservoir Dogs." You cannot afford to jump from set to set. It will not look good, so do not try.
Could Madsen have brought that up to the producers? Or was that a Tarantino secret I just discovered.
If M. Night Shyamalan directed low-budget noir, he may end up providing us with a film like "Living & Dying". This film is too stupid to be worthwhile, and it is sad the crew did not know when to quit or do their homework.
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