The Dead Don’t Die (2019)

Let me preface this review with some proper disclosure. Jim Jarmusch is one of my all-time favourite filmmakers. The man is an artist. I love his approach to filmmaking and I have loved almost every movie he’s made to this day… to varying degrees, but still loved them all. When I sat down to view The Dead Don’t Die I was excited. Expectations were high. I mean the one and only Bill Maurray, Adam Driver, Iggy Pop, Danny Glover, Tilda Swinton! Tom F-ing Waits!! I was halfway giddy. As the film started it had all the telltale signs of another strange and wonderful Jarmusch film and it kept me excited… most of the way.

Don’t get me wrong, The Dead Don’t Die is not a bad film. It remains entertaining and well acted and expertly produced all the way through, but… and there is a big “but” here… Jarmusch being who he is, should probably have known better. Then again, who am I to tell the great Jim Jarmusch how to make a film? He probably made it exactly how he wanted it to be. So this is just my opinion and in my eyes, The Dead Don’t Die is a very good film and still, a missed opportunity. It should have been better.

The technical aspects are Jarmusch-perfect. The acting is spot-on. Murray and Driver lead the story and do so in hilarious fashion. They show some similarities in their behaviour and general outlook on life early on, but as we progress, become more of an odd couple and it works wonderfully. Tilda Swinton is at her weirdly best and displays fantastic comedic timing. Chloe Sevigny and Tom Waits provide some assistance as do Glover and Steve Buscemi, as well as Caleb Landry Jones who are wonderful additions in smaller roles. The cameos by The RZA, Pop, Rosie Perez, Carol Kane and even a somewhat out of place Selena Gomez, do their parts justice.

The cinematography by Frederick Elmes (Paterson, Olive Kitteridge, Synechdoche New York, Broken Flowers, Blue Velvet, Eraserhead) is simply masterful. He does such as great job at showing a sleepy town turn into a zombie-ravaged war zone, yet keeping the tone even and somehow beautiful. The special and practical effects, makeup and music are all handled beautifully to fit with the style of the film.

A slow, meandering pace that sneaks in some very funny or at least highly amusing gags is no doubt worth the price of admission. I kept thinking that this film is somehow a cross between Shawn of the Dead and Fargo and felt to be how a zombie comedy directed by the Coen Brothers might look and feel.

As with most of Jarmusch‘s work, there is a point here that the legendary director is trying to get across. The line Adam Driver keeps repeating, “this is all going to end badly”, sounds as though coming directly from the director’s mouth and proves to be a kind of self-fulfilling prophecy. The satire is real and topical, yet lacks subtext. It is delivered in too high a volume and simply presses too hard which left me with a bitter taste. You can see and hear the director’s views from a mile away… they should have been more in subtext rather than so heavily on-the-nose.

Furthermore, in my opinion, some aspects of the story were either badly written or this film was meant to be much longer than it ended up being. Certain sub-plots are simply forgotten and left behind when too much emphasis was placed on them in the beginning. This will not sway me from continuing to follow the man’s work, BUT…

There is a lot of good and a little bad here. But the little bad counts for a lot. All in all, it’s fun, it’s funny, it’s entertaining and is sometimes clever yet in other parts not at all. On that, I expected more from Jarmusch. Then again, as expressed earlier, when compared to a filmmaking genius such as Jim here, what the f-k do I know? Yet, if I trust my instincts at all, they tell me this should have been a better film.

Pleasing yet at the same time, also somehow disappointing. 7/10.