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YOU KILL ME
Directed by: John Dahl.
Written by: Christopher Markus & Stephen McFeeley.
Produced by: Carol Baum, Al Corley, Mike Marcus, Eugene Musso, Bart Rosenblatt & Zvi Howard Rosenman.
Director of Photography: Jeffrey Jur.
Edited by: Scott Chestnut.
Music by Marcelo Zarvos.
Released by: IFC Films.
Country of Origin: USA. 92 min. Rated R.
With: Ben Kingsley, Téa Leoni, Luke Wilson, Bill Pullman, Philip Baker Hall & Dennis Farina.

Frank (Ben Kingsley) is a drunk, and the bottle’s all he’s really got aside from his work, killing people for his uncle, Polish mob boss Roman (Philip Baker Hall). When he falls asleep on a crucial job, to snuff out an Irish mobster encroaching on his home turf in Buffalo, Roman sends the hapless, awkward but deadpan Frank to San Francisco to get clean. While there he’s given the job of an undertaker’s assistant, becomes semi-friendly with his AA sponsor Tom (Luke Wilson), and falls for a consistently sarcastic TV businesswoman, Laurel ( Tea Leoni), while being kept under the watchful eye of strange Dave (Bill Pullman). I mention so many characters because they’re really what are supposed to make this dark ensemble comedy appealing, and it is, up to a point.

Director John Dahl not-quite returns to form from his brief glory as one of the few filmmakers truly confident with neo-noir in the late ‘80s and early ‘90s (1989’s Kill Me Again is a minor classic), and he had a smaller success some years ago with the nifty thriller Joy Ride. Unfortunately, You Kill Me's screenplay’s pretty basic, though it fully relies on clever dialog, particularly from Leoni.

But if there is any reason to see the film it’s Kingsley, who save for his big commercial blunders (he should erase BloodRayne and Thunderbirds from his resume), is one of those big character actor/stars who is always good even in mediocre films. He elevates a character that is, like those around him, pretty two-dimensional.

Unfortunately, the rest of his fellow cast, and it is a fairly well-assembled one, are uneven because of the limited script. We’re given a light tone throughout, as if there isn’t much consequence to Frank sobering up or Laurel learning the tricks of the killing trade from Frank or the dire straits his uncle faces back in Buffalo. On the one hand, an actor like Hall is one with so many roles under his belt that all he has to do is say his lines correctly to do well. On the other hand, Wilson is given pittance as a gay toll taker on the Golden Gate Bridge (that he’s gay is supposed to be assumed, but it’s just a dim-witted tag on in case one forgets that the film’s set in San Francisco). Wilson probably only worked on the film to be near Kingsley.

Perhaps the light air of everything, closer to a romantic comedy, has some appeal, and in its quasi-sitcom/quasi-taboo-breaking HBO humor, it’s not a bad effort. But nothing’s at stake in the emotional connections of the characters. Past the dry comedy (“I’m Frank, I’m an alcoholic…I kill people”), it’s not too memorable. Jack Gattanella
July 4, 2007