Colin Farrell should really stick to comedies. With successful turns in In Bruges (2008), Horrible Bosses (2011), and recently Seven Psychopaths (2012), it’s clear to see that comedy is truly his forte. Though time and time again, he’s cast in action movies. It makes sense on paper. He looks and sounds like the perfect action star. In reality, however, it just never seems to work.
That’s not to say that the failure of his most recent effort, Dead Man Down, is all his fault. In fact, he’s the least of this film’s problems. At nearly 2 hours, Dead Man Down is a mixture of excruciatingly slow, cut-worthy scenes and throw-away moments which unfortunately can’t be saved by it’s enticing premise and roughly 10 minutes of decent action.
The overall plot of the film contains some absurd twists, but where it begins and where it ends up are two different things. After the film’s opening credits – at which I let out an audible “uh oh” at the logo for W.W.E. Studios – it quickly starts off with a bang. Victor (Colin Farrell) is a quiet and reliable member of a gang of bad guys led by Alphonse (Terrence Howard), who are being successfully picked off one-by-one by a Zodiac-style serial killer from inside the crew. Alphonse will stop at nothing to find out who’s doing this. That’s about 10 minutes of the film.
For the next 30, we are given a completely different story between Victor and his neighbor, Beatrice (Noomi Rapace), who’s face is scarred from an accident with a drunk driver. In the modern-day version of a tin-can telephone, Beatrice and Victor stand on their balconies and talk to one another via cellphone. Slowly, they form a bond. On a dinner date, the story takes a twist, when Beatrice blackmails Victor into agreeing to kill the man who scarred her face with evidence of a murder she saw him commit. From this point on, the plot becomes a combination of The Departed and an early-year action release (take your pick) – a vast majority of the latter.
Throughout Dead Man Down, Colin Farrell does his best impression of Ryan Gosling in Drive, but it just looks like he’s staring off into space, and looks a little awkward. This movie has an abundance of extreme close-up shots on actor’s faces. You’d think they’d at least show some type of emotion. It doesn’t happen. The film has a lot of character development as well. Unfortunately, the characters never actually develop. We’re given the same traits over and over. How many scenes do we need to see of Colin Farrell and Noomi Rapace looking sad? They’re both depressed. We get it.
I also felt like certain scenes could have been placed at any point in the movie. This is a common feature of movies that either have a weak script and are trying to layer on more time or movies that were plagued with reshoots. Both of these are possibilities.
Luckily, Dominic Cooper, the London-born actor, fresh off supporting roles in Captain America and Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, tries his best – and succeeds – at turning some tired dialogue into semi-watchable material in a small supporting role as Victor’s best friend. The film also had some nice looking action shots. Danish director Niels Arden Oplev (The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo) knows what he’s doing when it comes to directing exciting action scenes. It’s a shame they only took up about 5% of the movie.
However, a great premise and good action does not a good film make – especially when the rest of your movie is filled with long stares, overwrought plot twists, and depressive characters. Luckily, this film won’t make much at the box office and shouldn’t be too big of a blight on the careers of this talented cast.
