MOVIE REVIEW - Dead Man Down

It's new, it's heavy and it's the new Colin Farrel, Terrence Howard inner city crime piece, Dead Man Down.  Among the other things it is, is boring.

This is a very sullen, dark, dank drama that deals with inner city organized crime, revenge and an attempted love story.  This is a strange movie.  It actually has a rather exciting ending, and a pretty good crescendo moment.   But the trek to get there is slow, arduous, and painfully slow.

Farrell is Victor.   He is part of an organized crime family,  and is in the inner circle as is a trusted member, especially by the crime boss, Alphonse (Howard).  The crime ring is having a feud with other crime rings in New York City and members of his crew are being killed methodically.   As paranoia grows, a new wrinkle develops.  

A beautiful young woman, Beatrice (Noomi Repace)  seemingly befriends Victor.   Then while on a date, she states her real intention, and that is to blackmail Victor as she saw him kill a man in his apartment and has it on film.   She says Victor must kill a man who was a drunk driver and caused a terrible car accident that has left her facially disfigured.   She has no idea who Victor really is, and what he does for a living.

Turns out that the crime family doesn't know who Victor is either, as he is actually the mole that is killing off gang members, extracting his own ounce of revenge.  I know this sounds a bit interesting, and the basic premise is.  Trouble is, that this has a hard time getting off the ground.  In fact, some of this is very sleepy, and staying awake might be a chore.  This is all filmed very dark, everyone speaks in very low monotone voices, and there is not much emotion, or action for the first 90 minutes.  Man, wake me up when the good parts come on.

And the end is a pretty good payoff, and clearly the chemistry between Beatrice and Victor is there, and you know where that is eventually going.  You do kind of have the feeling the whole time that it will end well.  But the journey there is pretty tough.  As good of a cast as this has, and as deep as this story is, there is a reason it's a March release, that's because it's pretty marginal.

Dead Man Down.  You're getting sleepy....very sleepy....