Rating: 3/5
Criterion Challenge 2024 | 31/52 | Michael Shannon’s Closet Picks
Bobbie chastises Jack for blowing all his money when he could save for something bigger. He’s always making big plans for tomorrow because, as Bobbie put it, he’s already fucked up today. Jack is a pimp, and he’s not doing great.
Gig comes over to Jack’s. Jack gives Bobbie a gun, just in case. Gig says he found a girl he wants to give to Jack and make things right between them. Jack doesn’t trust Gig but checks it out anyway. Jack tries to upsell the girl, but the cops bust in and arrest Jack. When they turn on the lights, Jack realizes she’s a child. As they take Jack out, Detective Mandingo tries to comfort the girl but ends up sounding eerily similar to Jack.
Laurette throws Zack’s 78s out of the house. Zack sits on the bed, moping. Zack is a DJ, and he’s burned his last bridge and can’t find another job. So, Zack walks among all his broken records and strewn clothes out on the street.
Zack gets drunk and mopes outside a bar. Bob, an Italian tourist, starts a conversation with Zack, despite only speaking a little English. When Zack tells Bob to buzz off, Bob takes it as a compliment and writes it down for later before wandering off. Preston walks up and offers Zack a job. Zack doesn’t trust Preston but hears him out. Preston wants Zack to drive a car somewhere and leave it. Zack takes it, but a cop pulls him over on the trip. They keep him at gunpoint as they open the trunk. Inside is a dead body.
Who should meet each other at the jail but Jack and Zack? The film follows them as they figure out how to tolerate one another.
In true Jarmusch form, we have a film that, on paper, is a tense neo-noir, but is more often a character study. No, you won’t learn how Jack or Zach got set up, who the body is, or any of that. Hell, when they escape, we don’t have any clue how. As a formalist exercise, it’s amusing. And lord knows we’ve had enough prison escape movies.
Somehow, Jim Jarmusch got the brilliant Robby Müller to do the cinematography. Müller would work with Jarmusch a few more times throughout his career, his last movie being Coffee and Cigarettes. The rich monochrome and eloquent camera placement add a dynamic missing from Stranger Than Paradise. Still, this is a movie where folks sit around and go through their feelings. It just also has a plot.
Joy N. Houck Jr. makes an appearance as Detective Mandino.
John Lurie does the score for the movie, while Tom Waits provides a few songs. The two actors have good brotherly chemistry — that love-hate where they’ll fight but still help each other.
I don’t like Roberto Benigni, but he’s the film’s sole source of life this movie has for long swaths. I’m glad he met his real-life wife, Nicoletta Nraschi while working on the movie. It never gets more dynamic than the opening with Laurette and the records. I don’t know, it’s quite good and even funny. I’m not always on Jarmusch’s wavelength, but this wasn’t as off-putting as some of his other flicks.
Also, John Lurie’s hot, so that helps.