Hey everyone. Capone in Chicago here.
Director John Dahl has been something of a personal hero of mine since his first three films hit me with a one-two-three punch combination back in the late 1980s, early 1990s. KILL ME AGAIN, RED ROCK WEST and THE LAST SEDUCTION are just three of the greatest crime dramas of their time. They are dark, sleazy, weird and, above all else, kind of funny. His greatest success came with the gambling crime drama ROUNDER, which featured early and solid performances from Matt Damon and Edward Norton, followed by the pseudo-stalker movie JOY RIDE. His latest film, YOU KILL ME, is quite simply his best work. He takes his usual brand of pitch black storytelling, injects a great deal of dark humor, and the result is one of the greatest character studies ever done about a criminal, in this case, a hitman named Frank Falenczyk from Buffalo.
Frank (played with ballsy bitterness by Ben Kingsley) is an alcoholic, whose bosses indulge him because his condition has never interfered with his work — until it does. Frank lets a rival mob boss (Dennis Farina) escape a hit because he passes out waiting for him at a train station. Frank's boss (Philip Baker Hall) clearly loves Frank dearly, so rather than kill him, he ships his off to San Francisco to dry out. Frank, a man who clearly loves Buffalo for the weather, is against the idea, but goes anyway. After being set up with a place and a job (as a funeral home makeup assistant!) by a local arranger (Bill Pullman), Frank goes to his first Alcoholics Anonymous meeting. He finds it ridiculous, but he does meet a new friend and gains a sponsor, a gay man played by Luke Wilson, in what might be his most non-Luke Wilson-ish role. And slowly but surely, Frank's life gets better, one step at a time.
Perhaps unwisely at this stage in his life, Frank meets a prospective love interest in Tea Leoni's Lauren, who steps into his world as she sets up the funeral of her stepfather. Lauren is a woman with no boundaries or filters, and her honestly inspires Frank to be as open and honest with her and his AA comrades as possible, including coming clean about his hitman occupation. I'll be the first to admit, I've never really liked Leoni as an actress (with the exception of her hilarious role in FLIRTING WITH DISASTER, a film similar in tone to this one), but she's impressive as hell in YOU KILL ME. Her delivery sometimes seems flat and without energy, but when you combine her performance with the words she's saying, it all feels right; the delivery is exactly right. Her emotionless exterior is hiding and protecting a troubled soul. And while we feel fairly certain these two would make a perfect dysfunctional couple, their being together is not a forgone conclusion.
Meanwhile, the rivalry between the two mob figures is becoming a problem, and Frank is called back to finish his unfinished job, leaving his life in San Francisco in limbo, and his future in the land of the living a big question mark as well. I think the film could have ended just as well without the return to Buffalo, but this plot turn in no way damages my love of YOU KILL ME. What Kingsley accomplishes here is glorious and in the same league as his scary work in SEXY BEAST. The subtle changes in his character as he begins to accept his condition and what it's going to take to pull him out of his private hell are something only a perfectionist like Kingsley could pull off. Frank latches onto a routine that keep him from drinking, and when he dares to stray from it, things go either very bad or very well. Either way, it scares the crap out of him, and John is smart enough to never let us predict exactly what direction Frank's life is headed next. This is an intelligent comedy that taps into some of the human condition's darkest corners and manages to be charming and thought provoking. Better than that, it never stops surprising you.
Capone
