The Dead Don’t Die *** (2019, Bill Murray, Adam Driver, Tom Waits, Tilda Swinton, Chloë Sevigny, Steve Buscemi, Danny Glover) – Movie Review

Writer-director Jim Jarmusch’s cool zombie comedy The Dead Don’t Die (2019) is consistently amusing throughout, with a whole lot of laughs and chortles. It is the knowing comedy of irrelevance, sarcasm, throwaway lines, absurdities and movie references. And it works!

I chortled all the way through. Bill Murray and Adam Driver form a really good, funny double act as Chief Cliff Robertson and Officer Ronnie Peterson, the laid-back lawmen of the previously peaceful American small town of Centerville who have to battle a horde of zombies when the dead rise from their graves in the local cemetery.

Tilda Swinton is hilarious as the weird sword-wielding Scotswoman Zelda Winston, while Caleb Landry Jones amuses as shop-owner Bobby Wiggins, and Tom Waits (as Hermit Bob), Chloë Sevigny, Steve Buscemi, Danny Glover, RZA, Larry Fessenden, Rosie Perez, Iggy Pop and Carol Kane are all assets to the cast.

There is an infectious air of gleeful amateurism about the project. Everybody seems to be having a ball, and they convey that idea to the audience. It is not a great Jarmusch movie, or a great zombie comedy, but it is a good, thoroughly likeable one. Admittedly, some characters are just brought in to be killed off by zombies – Selena Gomez, Austin Butler and Luka Sabbat show promise and are wasted – and the film just fizzle and fade in its final reel. But it is still way fun enough. It is loads of fun.

It is weird to have a Jarmusch movie on wide release – unique in fact – but, with Murray, Driver, Waits and Swinton plus zombies and laughs, it has plenty of popular appeal. Catch it while you can.

Swinton gave Jarmusch the idea to make a zombie movie while they shot Only Lovers Left Alive.

© Derek Winnert 2019 Movie Review

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