Official Synopsis
Victor (Colin Farrell), a professional killer and the right hand man to an underground crime lord in New York City, is seduced and blackmailed by Beatrice (Noomi Rapace), a crime victim seeking retribution. Their chemistry and intense relationship leads them to execute a violent and cathartic plan for revenge.
The premise of this film is beautiful, but the execution is a little empty. This is one of those films where the director/writer just wanted to get to the good action stuff without treating the setup in the first act with respect. The movie starts off rushed, as we immediately get a taste of what Victor does for a living, which is basically a hired gun for a crime boss named Alphonse (Terrence Howard). Once that is established, the film moves on to Noomi Rapace’s Beatrice, who is still recovering from a terrible car accident caused by a drunk driver, which you won’t find out about until nearly the first act of the film is complete.
So how does Beatrice run into Victor? They’re building neighbors, who seem to innocently live in separate worlds. Beatrice, who hasn’t been on a date for a while due to her accident, is pushed out by her mom to get in touch with the man she’s been flirting with for weeks on the balcony — Victor. Beatrice takes the first step and asks Victor out, who takes the bait. All is well until the first date leads to an awkward moment, which is Beatrice reveals her intentions to blackmail Victor. Beatrice sets Victor up after witnessing him murder someone. She blackmails him into helping her track down the man who caused her car accident (a drunk driver). Along the way, Victor tells his own horror story of why he does what he does and a small relationship is established. This is, of course, the first of two problems.
The first problem, and the biggest one, is that Victor at this point of his life in the film, with nothing to lose, should just go ahead and shoot Beatrice and her mom. It makes no sense why he keeps them alive. Obviously, she doesn’t care much for him if she is going to blackmail him, so what’s keeping him from doing her in? It’s not like he’s in love with her at the beginning of this film because the film treats it like a nasty relationship. I mean ‘bam-bam’ blackmail problem solved, and it’s a logical solution to what we know of the characters.
The second problem, and this one becomes major later on, is that Victor’s tragedy is far worse than Beatrice’s. The characters, after revealing their own stories to each other, should agree that Victor has had enough bad things happen in his life to make him the emptiest inside and that Beatrice’s request should be erased. When you find out Victor’s backstory it will make Beatrice seem enormously selfish, and in a way very unlikeable.
These problems are big for the screenwriter to simply look past, and it’s a bit ridiculous to move on with the story without really smoothing out or nixing these things completely. They’re two major hiccups and they needed some resolution before filming began. Sadly, they moved on with the film and I guarantee you anyone watching this film will think of these things before the film is done.
Having said that, the action in between the first and last act is as cold and calculating as Victor’s need for revenge. It’s brilliant and it’s the reason why you want to watch this film. Watching Farrell’s Victor in action is something to behold. He does a great job as a tragic character and comes off as someone who has planned the conclusion of his revenge extremely well, even though it sorta falls off at the end of the film. You’ll get hooked once everything gets going in the movie, but in the back of your mind the two above issues will hurt the experience a bit.
Shifting gears a bit, I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the scariness of Terrence Howard’s performance. The man can act his ass off when put in the right role. Playing a ruthless drug lord who is being haunted by his past really lends well to Howard’s acting range. His eyes tell the story in this one and writer J.H. Wyman did a great job with delivering the appropriate dialogue and character for him. He did a great job and owned the screen until the very end.
Overall, without wanting to give too much away, I think this movie has great action, but trips a bit at the character and story setup. It needed a bit more at the beginning and less at the end. Dead Man Down isn’t a brilliant film, but it’s good for what it does deliver — intense action.
As for the Blu-ray portion of the film, I was incredibly impressed with the HD quality. Although the movie was shot in a darker tone (lots of whites/blacks), the absence of compression issues and color banding was quite impressive. Sony usually does a solid job with HD transfers, so it’s not surprise that Dead Man Down turned out very well. I dare you not to stare at one of the hit man’s chest tattoos. It shines through with every bit of detail that you probably can imagine. The HD transfer is probably the strongest part of this release.
As for the audio, it comes to you in DTS-HD 5.1 and the aspect ratio is 2.40:1.
Finally, here’s what you get with the special features:
– Staging the Action: The Firefights
– Revenge and Redemption: Crafting Dead Man Down
– Revenge Technique: The Cinematography
For a film that had some flaws, the special features really came through. All the featurettes are interesting and they add a bit more length to the movie. I think that maybe they could have used some commentary from the writer and director, possibly the actors, but what can you do? A good set of features for a so-so film isn’t a bad thing at all.