Things to Do in Denver When You're Dead

Rating:
Summary: GREAT FILM NAMES, GREAT PACE.
Review: They must have liked the script and great characters as Jimmy The Saint, Franchise, E-Z Winn and Mr. Shush. Andy Garcia, Christopher Walken, Steve Buscemi and others decided to forego their usual paydays to act in this now indie classic. THINGS TO DO IN DENVER is a great paced, extremely likeable film. The most fervent work is turned in by Treat Williams, as psychotic Critical Bill, and the major cool, Walken as the wheelchair bound, Man With The Plan (Jenny McCarthy as his nurse). Jack Warden old-pros his way by semi-narrating the tale of a group of misbegotten criminals and their impending doom. I'd buy at the Thick 'N' Rich anyday. Boat drinks all around!

Rating:
Summary: Another movie to watch before you're dead!
Review: Am I the only film buff who is tired of that knee-jerk phrase "Post-Tarantino" being slapped onto every film released since "Reservoir Dogs" that features a Heist Gone Awry? Tarantino himself "borrowed" shamelessly from a genre that dates back from 1954's "The Asphalt Jungle". "Things To Do In Denver..." merely carries on this time-honored Noir tradition, with much aplomb. Yes, it's formulaic, but when you've got crackling dialogue spouted by the likes of Chris Walken, Jack Warden, Andy Garcia, Treat Williams and Steve Buscemi, you can't go wrong. Despite the trappings of hip posturing and cartoon violence that run rampant in the script, Andy Garcia turns in a surprisingly moving and layered performance that gives the film some genuine heart (and class!). Treat Williams and Christopher Walken are barely able to contain thier glee as they chew up the scenery in entertaining Grand Guginol fashion. Look fast for a pre-"Boogie Nights" Don Cheadle as a trash talking gangsta. Quite enjoyable if you're in the mood for an old-fashioned shoot-em-up with post-modern attitude.

Rating:
Summary: pretentious, over-wrought
Review: About the only cool thing about this movie is its title - and that was actually from a Warren Zevon song. Everything else in this movie is fake - pseudo-hardboiled, pseudo-noir and bathed in synthetic-cool - to cover up a threadbare and often preposterous story involving "street thugs gone straight until..." Jimmy "The Saint", the head former thug is a likeable Andy Garcia, acting with his soul and not his hair but otherwise trapped in a bald plot. Having given up his day job of earning money the old-fashioned way, Jimmy now seeks profit through a more benevolent avenue - video-taping the final words of wisdom of the terminally ill. For all his charm, Jimmy can barely unload free brochures. Instead, he's summoned to the home of a dying and paraplegic arch-criminal known throughout the movie as "The Man With a Plan" but more accurately described by as "The Man Too Creepy Not to Be Played By Christopher Walken". "The Man" has a problem with his son Bernard (and not known as "The Man, Jr.") - the younger guy has begun losing his mind since losing his girlfriend. (The film opens with Bernard climbing the fence of a school, apparently to molest a young girl.) Convinced that things will turn around for his rapidly sinking son if he gets old girlfriend back, "The Man" hires Jimmy to "brace" the luckless woman's new boyfriend.

Brace?

Immediately, you can sense what's wrong with the script. Steve Martin once quipped that France was just another country where they use different words for everything. What Martin thought was funny gets the big serious treatment in Scott Rosenberg's lame script - in which presumably fearless and cold-blooded criminals nevertheless rely on a dizzying array of incongruous jargon to keep from explicitly describing their evil actions, and fall back on a reservoir of Hollywood wisdom to fill gaps in the action, which are unfortunately many. "Brace", we soon learn, means to inflict terror through a massive beating. Other scary terms are "Boat Drink", but especially "Buckwheat" - referring to any unusually painful, prolonged and humiliating form of execution reserved for those incurring the wrath of "The Man". Jimmy rounds up his gang of three others - including Treat Williams as "Critical Bill", a psychotic loose cannon who uses corpses as punching bags and is obsessed with his own bodily waste, and Christopher Lloyd, who's losing fingers and toes to some disease probably connected with his job in a porn-theater. Jimmy's plan involves masquerading as cops during a traffic stop of the new boyfriend. As you might have guessed, Jimmy's plan for bracing is fated for failure. The boyfriend, ironically the smartest character inhabiting this story, isn't cowed by his prospective bracing, and gets whacked. What the story never tangles with is how incredibly and mind-numbingly stupid it Jimmy's plan was to begin with. (With their ill-fitting uniforms and Lloyd's missing fingers, Jimmy's cops look as real as those used in an Ed Wood movie.) Unfortunately, Jimmy's plan is not only botched, it's fatally botched - Bernard's girlfriend dies, and Jimmy's gang now faces a serious "Buckwheating". The second half of the movie has our heroes searching for a way to get out of Denver alive, even as they contemplate their lives' ends. The script's pseudo-jargon gets heavier, and the story gets even thinner - meaning that we'll get even more Hollywood wisdom from Jack Warden's character (an old time gangster who inhabits a favorite malt shop, and ends up having to explain much of the terminology and "back story"). It's no spoiler that Jimmy will finish the movie dishing out his soul on one of his own video postmortems, but we're hoping to get something more than the script's arch insights. We don't even understand questions raised by the basic plot - nothing Jimmy and co. do suggests why "The Man" would rely on them to whack (sorry, brace) anybody, let alone a rival for his son's affections. Apparently, The Man does have his own enforcers - a point made clear by the end of the movie. Even the setting seems forced - it's obviously Denver, but the story could have taken place anywhere.

Though typically compared (unfavorably) to anything done by then by Tarantino, "Things" is actually something worse: it's a bare Tarantino movie based on the same model Rosenberg would use on "Beautiful Girls": the old buddies, arch dialog and phrases substituting for a skeletal plot, shallow sentimentality and a meandering story that never goes anywhere. Even the characters match up - with the psychotic Treat Williams approximating the more genially delusional character played in that movie by Michael Rapaport. (Both characters don't allow their lunacy to get in the way of the script's attempts to put knowing self-awareness into their dialog; In "Girls", a character jokes about checking Rapaport's character's fridge for human heads; in "Things", William's character stores his urine in milk jugs). I hated having to sit through the false wisdom of "Beautiful Girls" once, and decided that the least important thing I knew I wanted to do in Denver when I was dead was to catch a better movie.

Rating:
Summary: Oh, just watch it.
Review: I love this movie and I think it was very well done. I don't think it was meant to be a totally serious movie about gang life but more of a drama with a comedy spin thrown in. Andy Garcia (ya you know you love him) does an excellent job playing Jimmy the Saint and creates a personality for the character that fits the style of the movie perfectly. I think this film was seriously underrated by critics (what do they know?) and if your into this kind of movie (and maybe even if you aren't) then it's definetly worth watching.

Rating:
Summary: 4 stars if you really like dark comedy
Review: I dont think the people who gave this a bad review get it...its a comedy; not Goodfellas. How long would a paralyzed man last at the head of a real mafia family. Its a comedy folks...like when they refer to Christopher Walken as "the HEAD" because he is paralyzed from the neck down. Once again I think Chris Walken steals the show...he is real funny in this movie. And Treat Williams who I never really liked, I thought did a very good job. If you like dark comedy, then you will understand the punching bag scene. If you don't like dark comedy, I would stear clear of this one.

Rating:
Summary: The best movie you've never seen
Review: Somehow Miramax has a knack for making great movies and then forgetting to market them. Things to do in Denver When You're Dead ("Things to Do...")is exactly that. While most movie studios go to great lengths to hype up their mobster movies (e.g. scarface and goodfellas), "Things to Do..." has mainly gained popularity by word-of-mouth.

The story tells of a reformed gangster, Jimmy the Saint (Andy Garcia) who is forced by the boss (Christopher Walken) to return to the life for a one-time operation. Afterwards, Jimmy is forced to deal with the consequences.

Andy Garcia and Christopher Walken deliver terrific performances. Walken's erratic line delivery and Garcia's suave play out perfectly with their respective characters.

The only reason I'm not giving this DVD 5 stars is because the DVD itself has no bonus materials: no deleted scenes or director's commentary. Nor is there an outtakes or artboard.

None the less, "Things to do..." is one of the best gangster movies ever - on par with Goodfellas and Scarface. You'll be quoting lines from this movie soon after you watch it, and you'll be wishing more people had seen the movie.

Rating:
Summary: The Man With the Plan Buckwheats Jimmy the Saint and Friends
Review: Scott Rosenberg's script for "Things to Do in Denver When You're Dead" skates the edge big time in this 1995 film. There are times when what comes out of the mouth of his characters is on a par with Elmore Leonard and Quentin Tarrantino, but there are also moments when the verbiage becomes so dense that the film loses momentum. But whether you think that Rosenberg comes out ahead in the end or falls short, I can guarantee you that you will never forget what it means to "Buckwheat" somebody and that "Boat drinks" will sound like a great idea until the day you die.

The situation in "Things to Do in Denver When You're Dead" is that Jimmy the Saint (Andy Garcia) and his buddies know there time is coming to an end any moment. Jimmy runs a business where dying people get to videotape words of wisdom from beyond the grave to their loved ones. Throughout the film we get to see clips from such tapes, and if you do not know who is going to appear on the last one then you are not really thinking ahead on this one. This might be a good idea but it is a lousy business and Jimmy has been losing money and what he owes is now due to the Man With the Plan (Christopher Walken), a psychotic paraplegic who knows exactly how Jimmy can work out his debt.

A widower, the Man's son has been arrested for trying to molest a young girl on a school playground in broad daylight. The Man thinks that the son will get himself right again if only he can get back together with his old girlfriend, but she has a new boyfriend. Jimmy is order to pick up the boyfriend when he comes back to Denver and "brace" him. So Jimmy rounds up the old gang to do the deed and makes the mistake of picking Pieces (Christopher Lloyd), a projectionist at a porno theater who has lost a couple of digits to leprosy, and Critical Bill (Treat Williams), a psycho who has not beaten up a live person in years because he blows off steam by pummeling corpses, out front.

Suffice it to say that things go wrong, horribly wrong ((if you see parallels between this film and "Reservoir Dogs" I should point out that director Gary Fleder made a point of telling people that Rosenberg's script was written long before Tarrantino's film was made). This is why Jimmy and the boys are dead because the Man is going to have them killed. And not just killed. The famous hit man Mister Shhh (Steve Buscemi) is coming to town to not only kill the boys, but "Buckwheat" them (short version: lots of pain and suffering before death). Fortunately, we do not get to see too much of the actual Buckwheating, but the idea of it is enough to make you start cringing every time another one of the gang goes down for the long count.

Beyond the obvious complication that Jimmy feels bad about causing the imminent deaths of his friends, which he tries to do something about without success, he has a couple of romantic entanglements. Jimmy has just fallen for Dagney (Gabrielle Anwar), making sure there was as little time between their first and second date (because there is no kissing on the first date), and he knows that the Man knows about her. But Jimmy also has a soft spoke for Lucinda (Fairuza Balk), who might be a hooker but he does not like it when johns take advantage of her, especially now that she is pregnant.

We have no reason to believe that Jimmy can get out of Denver let along the end of this movie alive. The rules of the game are too clearly established here, and there is a retired gangster at the local diner (Jack Warden) who helps to fill in the gaps. The question is whether Jimmy can put together some sort of moral victory before the lights go out, and while there are certainly moments when this film is too damn cute for its own good, I appreciate it when a character listens to me screaming at him what he has to do to payback the Man before the end and actually does it.

It took me a while to get around to this one, but it is nice to see that Rosenberg has shown surer footing nearing the edge in the scripts he has written since then for "Con Air" and "High Fidelity." Fleder has gone on to direct "Kiss the Girls" and "Runaway Jury," both of which are improvements on this effort as well. "Things to Do in Denver When You're Dead" is not a first level example of the modern film noir, but it aspires to be and it has some moments. Plus, you have Christopher Walken showing how menacing he can be when nothing works below the neck, which is certainly good for something as well.


Rating:
Summary: One of the stupidest movies I've ever seen
Review: Save for the outstanding performance by Christopher Walken, this movie is bad in every way. The storyline has so many unneccessary diversions in it's a mess. Characters are often silly and stereotypical. Their relationships are underdeveloped and left me confused. Like someone said before, it really tries to be hip with its catchphrases but they didn't work. And oh yeah, why the hell would someone base a gangster movie in Denver of all places?

Rating:
Summary: GREAT FILM NAMES, GREAT PACE.
Review: They must have liked the script and great characters as Jimmy The Saint, Franchise, E-Z Winn and Mr. Shush. Andy Garcia, Christopher Walken, Steve Buscemi and others decided to forego their usual paydays to act in this now indie classic. THINGS TO DO IN DENVER is a great paced, extremely likeable film. The most fervent work is turned in by Treat Williams, as psychotic Critical Bill, and the major cool, Walken as the wheelchair bound, Man With The Plan (Jenny McCarthy as his nurse). Jack Warden old-pros his way by semi-narrating the tale of a group of misbegotten criminals and their impending doom. I'd buy at the Thick 'N' Rich anyday. Boat drinks all around!

Rating:
Summary: Post-Tarantino knock-off, tries too hard, has its moments...
Review: No, you've probably not heard of this movie before. Yes, there is probably a good reason for that (any number of movies like this came out in the year following "Pulp Fiction"). No, this movie is not a waste of your time. Yes, within a few minutes you will have a PERFECTLY clear understanding of the term "wanna-be". And NO, I do not plan on spending the rest of this review writing like this.

An impressive gathering of character actors like this can mean only one thing: "Indie Cred" (or the desperate attempt to obtain it). And making a "stylish gangster movie" is probably the most obvious way to get there. Create some unusual (even disturbing) characters, write some slick dialogue, and add an air of inevitable doom to the atmosphere and you've pretty much captured the elements that made Quentin Tarantino a fortune and has enabled him to squander the talent that he has for the last 10 years.

In this narrative tale (not entirely convincingly told by Jack Warden) we find the typical "trying-to-go-straight" but struggling career criminal (Andy Garcia) being enticed back to work for his former mob boss (Christopher Walken in the first of two memorable roles spent confined to a chair -see "Suicide Kings"). It's a simple job; "encourage" the boyfriend of the boss's son's ex-girlfriend to leave her, hoping that she'll give the boss's son (who is borderline psychotic, by the way) another chance. Garcia hooks up again with the assortment of characters who make up his former gang and everything goes wrong bigtime. Mob boss Walken is not amused, orders everyone killed, and the movie progresses from there.

It's a lot like "2 Days in the Valley", actually...except it's in Denver. And Denver, I have to say, never having been there in person, looks like a charming city.

The real reason to see this movie is to watch The Greatest Pick-Up Line Ever. Andy Garcia delivers it when he meets the hopelessy sexy Gabrielle Anwar, and even though you KNOW it's an obvious line, he pulls it off amazingly well. Definitely worth seeing. Worth owning if you dig the genre. And definitely worth owning if you're a Christopher Walken fan.