Wick's Review

Summary - Good 3.0

Some great acting and more than a little visual excitement make Dead Man Down a richly entertaining action thriller. Overcooked dialog and an undernourished plot make it more than a little disappointing.

The reunion of Noomi Rapace – the original Girl with the Dragon Tattoo – with her director from the first and best of the now four Girl with the Dragon Tattoo movies augured greatness. As did an appearance from Dominic Cooper, a must-see actor after his turn as Uday Hussein in The Devil’s Double. Those three – along with the always handsome Colin Farrell and the always compelling Armand Assante – don’t disappoint, but are let down by a merely OK script.

So on this slow March weekend – as far as movie premieres are concerned – Dead Man Down is a decent ticket. One suspects it will garner a more favorable reaction down the road when it’s available on-demand.

Acting - Very Good 3.5

Colin Farrell and Noomi Rapace have a tormented chemistry together. Interestingly, each affects a perfect American accent, though she’s Swedish playing a French immigrant to NY, while he’s Irish playing a Hungarian immigrant. Acting!

Farrell’s classical handsomeness and buff middleweight physique are put to best usage the less he speaks, so the role of laconic avenger suits him. He’s like a low rent Bruce Wayne, complete with a Bat Cave behind his refrigerator.

Rapace essays another scarred woman, this time visibly so after a horrific car crash left one side of her face looking like a subway map. She shows much more vulnerability however than as Lisbeth Salander. How could she not? Still, her terrific performance as a tragic young woman desirous of love marks an important step in her journey to well-rounded moviestar.

The great Dominic Cooper appears the fool at first, not even immediately recognizable as the man who played Saddam’s son Uday. Then his inimitable character emerges: half foolish, half deadly. Brilliant.

Terrence Howard disappoints as a cocaine kingpin, his high-pitched sotto voce simply not conveying its intended gravitas. He’s got a great look, but his voice is better suited for the silent era than the talkies.

A trio of great old stars deepen the movie in their short time on screen.

• Isabelle Huppert as Noomi Rapace’s lovely French Mama.
• F. Murray Abraham as Colin Farrell’s partner in vengeance.
• Armand Assante as a crime lord. Assante should be in at least one big movie a year. His IMDb Filmography says he’s busier than ever, but most of the titles seem to be low budget. Pity.

Film - Good 3.0

Niels Arden Oplev brings impressive visual inventiveness to the film, especially when Colin Farrell’s one man wrecking crew lays waste to a small army of bad guys, but also in the quiet scenes between two tortured souls living across a chasm of air in a low rent apartment tower.

This isn’t surprising given the tremendous flair Oplev infused in his previous film, the first Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. Let’s hope he gets a similar quality script to that Swedish masterpiece for his next outing.

Edge - Risqué 2.3

Brutally violent. For we action movie fans, this is a good thing.

Reality - Surreal 2.3

Hyper violent firefights go on for extended sequences in midtown Manhattan with NYPD nowhere in sight. C’mon man.

1 Comment

• Wick Sep 2, 2013 9:58PM

  Regarding jasonhurwitz’s Review
  “Colin = yeah! Terrence = meh.” Yep.

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