You Kill Me
Director: John Dahl. Screenplay: Christopher Markus, Stephen McFeely. Cinematography: Jeffrey Jur. Film editing: Scott Chestnut. Production design: John Dondertman. Music: Marcelo Zarvos. Producers: Carol Baum, Al Corley, Mike Marcus, Eugene Musso, Bart Rosenblatt, Howard Rosenman. With: Ben Kingsley, Philip Baker Hall, Téa Leoni, Luke Wilson, Bill Pullman, Dennis Farina, Katie Messina, Marcus Thomas, Will Woytowich, Jon Ted Wynne, Scott Heindl, Tracy McMahon, Jayne Eastwood, Aaron Hughes, Lorraine James, Micheline Marchildon, Devin McCracken, Joanne Rodriguez, Darren Wall, Warren Louis Wiltshire, Cory Cassidy. USA. 91 min. 2007.
In trouble with da boss for letting booze interfere with his professional duties, a hit man from Buffalo gets dispatched to San Francisco until he’s clean and sober. It's hard to imagine a more felicitous change of cities, but the strings attached to the arrangement—finding real employment, staying off the sauce—diminish the thrill, especially when his new job turns out to be in a mortuary. An assassin religiously attending AA sessions is amusing in a sub-“Sopranos” kind of way, and Kingsley makes the most of the story’s offbeat humor. The picture as a whole is more diverting than memorable, though; will Dahl ever regain the darkly comic edge that made “Red Rock West” such a hugely entertaining romp?
– David Sterritt
