Dead Man Down
Audiences know Niels Arden Oplev primarily for his success with the mediocre adaptations of the late Stieg Larsson's pulpy Millennium novels. Oplev portrayed the frigid beauty of Swedish winter with static shots, purposefully and effectively highlighting the film's characters' isolation. However, Dead Man Down suggests that effectiveness may have been a fluke. Oplev shoots a New York City summer in the exact same manner, turning one of cinema's most enjoyable settings into a boring, lifeless bustle with no personality. The film might as well have taken place on an empty soundstage.
Dead Man Down contains a single full scene and a few scattered moments which feature that special transcendent terribleness that can make an ill-conceived and/or poorly made film entertaining and worthwhile. Unfortunately, those moments cannot atone for the dull, self-serious remainder. Of the film's numerous problems, pacing is the worst. Oplev's static shots linger on for no reason. The dialogue scenes, already often overwrought and superfluous on the page, are stilted by bizarre editing choices; mostly overlong reaction shots and unnatural pauses in conversation. Of course, the actors may deserve some of the blame as well.
Colin Farrell and Noomi Rapace have a baffling lack of chemistry, a chemistry upon which the entire film depends. It's impossible to tell if Rapace is overacting or Farrell is underacting. Both characters have tragic pasts; Rapace copes with hers by being a rash, dramatic lunatic, while Farrell suppresses his emotions entirely. All of them. Even hunger. Wait, no, he appears eating some microwave noodles at one point. Anyway, Farrell mumbles his way through the film without a single smile or grimace, an experience made worse by the fact that we know exactly how wonderfully charismatic he can be when fully engaged. That scene of transcendent terribleness occurs when Farrell and Rapace go on a date early in the film. Oplev posits the scene as a meet-cute. The characters sit across a restaurant table and explain their simple characterizations to each other repeatedly, Rapace giving her Drama 101 all and Farrell giving absolutely nothing. They try to bond, and the film acts as if they do, and it's amazing. Taken out of context the scene might work better, but as the sole attempt at lightness amidst the relentless, dull ugliness of Dead Man Down, it fails gloriously. The date occurs twenty minutes in, and marks the only time the film manages to be enjoyable. Not worth it.
The story twists and turns in unexpected ways, but the audience has no reason to care, to invest, and it doesn't warrant discussion. There are no stakes. The lame, unlikable characters rush around the ugly city with vague notions of vengeance and romance. None of it matters. Dead Man Down fails to entertain on any level.
1/5