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You Kill Me
R1 - America - Genius Products Review written by and copyright: Noor Razzak (15th October 2007). |
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The Film
 You don’t normally associate an actor like Ben Kingsley, ahem…Sir Ben Kingsley with terrible b-grade films not worth the celluloid they are printed on, yet when you look at his filmography you can see several of these films polluting his career. These films include “What Planet Are You From?” (2000), “Spooky House” (2000), “A Sound of Thunder” (2005), the tragically horrible Uwe Boll directed film “BloodRayne” (2005) and the recently released snore-fest “The Last Legion” (2007). It’s a shocking surprise that an Oscar winning actor of Kingsley’s ability would wager his reputation on such garbage as “BloodRayne”, the paycheck must have been worth it. Luckily he’s managed to fill in the gaps with occasional acts of brilliance and “You Kill Me” is one such example that happily for this reviewer stands head and shoulders above all those other nonsense films he’s appeared in of late. Frank Falenczyk (Ben Kingsley) is a hit-man; he works for Roman Krzeminski (Philip Baker Hall) a Polish mobster who runs a snow plow outfit out of Buffalo, New York. Frank used to be great at his job, but recently has been on a down slope; his alcoholism is starting to affect his work and falls asleep on the job, missing the chance to kill an opposing Irish mob boss Edward O'Leary (Dennis Farina). Roman, disappointed by Frank and determined to get him clean sends him to San Francisco, enrolls him in AA and a job at a mortuary. Under the watchful eye of Dave (Bill Pullman), a crooked real estate agent and friend of the family, Frank meets Laurel (Téa Leoni) and makes a friend in sponsor Tom (Luke Wilson) while things start going south back in Buffalo when the Irish family make their move on Roman’s crew and sees Frank back in town to face his old rivals. Fans of dark comedy will likely get a kick out of this; the film has a Coen brother’s sensibility about it that provides the film whip-lash dryness. The films most exciting moments surround the AA meetings in which Frank attends and openly talks about his being a hit-man and killing people for a living. Additionally his relationship with both Laurel and his sponsor Tom lend themselves for equally rewarding scenes as Tom is open to listening to most of Frank’s problems and the urge of drinking and the lure of his profession continually drives a wedge in-between him and Laurel, however Laurel never gives in and sticks with Frank. Kingsley is certainly the driving force behind this film, his performance is sublime and his dialogue equally so, a testament to the tight and well plotted scripting by Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely. The support cast is equally excellent, Wilson and Pullman provide some fine performances and match heads with Kingsley at each turn, Leoni does her best but she never really captures the frame as other actresses in her league have been able to do. She breezes through the role which doesn’t seem like much of a challenge. Director John Dahl and the screenwriters weave a wonderful gangster tale in a different direction, instead of focusing on the power, violence and influence he focuses on the human elements of what makes a mob enforcer tick under the constant pressures of staying clean which lends itself well to the dark comedic tone of the film. The film does have a slow pace at times but in the end is a thoroughly rewarding experience.
Video
Presented in the film’s original theatrical ratio of 2.35:1 this anamorphic widescreen transfer offers up a decent presentation of this film. The image is sharp for the most part and displays detail well; the image does have a fair bit of light grain though. Colors are muted to match the overall look of the film, however the drab color palette tends to affect the black levels and in low lit scenes detail is sometimes hard to make out. Aside from this it’s a serviceable transfer with no compression artefacts or any edge-enhancement spotted.
Audio
A single English Dolby Digital 5.1 track is included, this film is not a film that makes use of a total surround sound package, the track leans towards the ambient rather than aggressive. Dialogue is clear and distortion free however I felt that the audio was mixed rather low and had to watch the film with a high volume setting. Environmental and directional effects are well placed and feel natural. Gun shots especially come across well sounding realistic without the heavy impact often heard in action films. Optional subtitles are included in both English for the hearing impaired and Spanish.
Extras
Genius Products has released this film along with an audio commentary, two featurettes, a theatrical trailer as well as a collection of bonus trailers. Below is a closer look at these supplements. First up we’ve got a feature-length audio commentary by the film’s director John Dahl and screenwriters Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely. They comment on how the script went through various stages before getting into the hands of Kinsgley and the director, and how from that point on the pieces started to fall into place quickly. The script was written over 10 years ago and they comment on some minor changes made to it in order to consolidate scenes to fit the budget of the film. They also comment on shooting in Canada and how Winnipeg doubled for Buffalo, New York, the writers talks about writing a black comedy and staying away from certain conventions of the genre, they also talks about their favorite scenes and character moments throughout the film with Dahl occasionally talking lightly about the production process. Following that is the "Behind-the-Scenes of You Kill Me" featurette which runs for 10 minutes 21 seconds, this is a standard EPK clip and is filled with the usual talking heads of the key cast and crew commenting on what the film is about, their characters, the tone of the film and what attracted them to the project as well as why it’s such a great film. Nothing much is learned that you already haven’t from the commentary in this clip. Next up is "Before and After Visual Effects Comparison" featurette which runs for 5 minutes 37 seconds, you wouldn’t think this film would require special effects but since the film was shot in Canada they had to composite in San Francisco backgrounds on scenes shot against green screen, other effects included digital snow and color correcting the shots to reduce the color green to give the film a more mid-winter feel to it. The clip shows various scenes before and after the effects work was applied. Also included on this disc is the film’s original theatrical trailer which runs for 2 minutes 33 seconds. Rounding out the extras are a series of start-up bonus trailers for: - "Pierrepoint: The Last Hangman" which runs for 2 minutes 23 seconds. - "This is England" which runs for 2 minutes 29 seconds. - "Alone with Her" which runs for 1 minute 2 seconds. - "The Wind that Shakes the Barley" which runs for 2 minutes 16 seconds.
Overall
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