Dead Man Down *** (2013, Colin Farrell, Noomi Rapace, Dominic Cooper, Isabelle Huppert, Terrence Howard) – Movie Review

The star and director of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo reunite for this efficient and competent 2013 gangland revenge thriller that delivers good genre thrills with a smart arty overlay without reaching any great heights or depths.

Dublin’s Colin Farrell is the main star, unlikely casting, you may say, as Victor, an East European refugee down on his luck in New York, now a tough urban killer but with an underlying sensitivity that’s going to get him in trouble yet of course be his eventual redemption. He’s got a mind for murder and then he falls for a French woman, Beatrice, played by The Swedish Girl with the Dragon Tattoo herself, Noomi Rapace.

There are lots of tasty ingredients but unfortunately also several problems with Dead Man Down. As usual, they start with the script, which is good enough but isn’t nearly as dazzling as director Niels Oplev thinks. It is a very interesting story, as he says, there is a lot of stuff in it, and there is a lot of depth to the characters, yes.

But none of it comes across as entirely fresh or urgent. The two-hour running time is far too long for the material. At a brisk, spare 90 minutes, it could have been a great B-movie. Try as hard as they can, it just doesn’t have enough twists and turns to keep it mega entertaining and exciting.

Writer Joel Wyman worked six years on the script, so it’s not that it isn’t polished and finely honed. It is. It’s just that it remains frustratingly in the competent and diverting category. It’s a rainy day movie; you’ll want to see it but you’d never want to leave the sunshine for it.

Farrell’s good, not great maybe, but certainly good, in a difficult task of suggesting an action hero as a real, individual person, making mistakes like the rest of us, and trying to correct them, working to triumph over them and generally get himself out of a dreadful mess he’s found himself in. And do that with the help of a woman, as flawed and damaged (and reluctantly violent) as he – his soul mate obviously. For that, here, is the hero’s journey.

He is one of the old anti-heroes of film noir, a reluctant man of violence, battered and beaten up by life on the surface, but totally resilient, ultimately triumphing over everything, and naturally with a soft, warm heart of gold. Put that way, this was always going to be a big, fat schlep for any actor, and that Farrell is able to bring this off with some considerable style and conviction is a commendable achievement for him, quite a little feather in his cap. Sound work, as they used to say on school essays.

The heroine then has to be a bit femme fatale, and she is. The Swedish star Rapace is also unlikely casting as a chic French woman, who, unlike her Dragon Tattoo character, is very feminine, with high heels, a manicure, beautiful hair, eye-lashes. Rapace is hard put to suggest petite and fragile. But then she’s way better with her character’s suppressed rage, the enormous anger and darkness in her heart she’s hourly in touch with after a car accident that’s left her facially disfigured, her beauty permanently impaired. She’s dubbed ‘monster’ by the local kids.

Beatrice is living with her mother (a skittish Isabelle Huppert, very properly French) in the neighbouring apartment, where Victor is spying on her. They meet up romantically, but it seems Beatrice isn’t interested in romance after all. She’s filmed Victor killing a man in his apartment, and she blackmails him into agreeing to kill the drunken driver of the car who injured her.

Victor doesn’t fancy this – just her – and anyway he has other problems with the day job. His ruthless crime lord boss Alphonse (Terrence Howard) has just found the body of a gang member in his freezer and his cocky young goodfella pal Darcy (Dominic Cooper, born in Greenwich, London, and star of The History Boys, talk about unlikely casting!) is sniffing around to find out who is on the boss’s case.

Yes, the complicated plot is fine, and so are the characters and the eye-catching camera work. Problems lie with casting, dialogue, development, pacing and climax. But they’re all slight problems, not enough to spoil the film or enjoyment. A few changes, a bit more finesse here and there, some sharp editing, that kind of thing, and all would be well.

Even if there is a better film waiting to break out here and it’s never memorable like Dragon Tattoo, it’s entirely acceptable thriller entertainment for grown-ups.

© Derek Winnert 2013 Classic Review

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