Review: The Dead Don't Die

The Dead Don't Die
Cert: 15 / 105 mins / Dir. Jim Jarmusch / Trailer



Okay, help me out film-buffs: Are all Jim Jarmusch movies as sloppily written and mechanically acted as The Dead Don't Die? Is this the point? I only appear to have seen one other thing on his resumé, but I tend to hear his name spoken with respect and some artistic reverence. And this movie inspires neither.

OUTBREAK

The Dead Don't Die is a film where a zombie outbreak occurs in a small, backwater American town. That's about it. There's not really a story, it's more a series of events, most of which are interlinked by the chronology of the piece, if nothing else. The dead come back to life and start attacking the living, a lot of people die as a result. That's about it. Oh, and Iggy Pop in zombie-makeup looks exactly like Iggy Pop. Make of that what you will.

This feels like Jarmusch hates zombie films and has decided to take that out on an unsuspecting genre-audience. The movie is overflowing with clumsy, literal dialogue. Characters narrate their inner monologue, repeat each other as if they're stalling for time and describe everything they do or see. Form an audio standpoint, it's like a badly improvised radio drama that's somehow been caught on film.

The problem could be that stiltedly reproducing something in a wry yet artless manner is not the same as deconstructing it. And if you're not going to deconstruct your subject, don't try to make a smug, arthouse-friendly movie about it. All the knowing glances and fourth-wall-nudging in the world can't stop this from feeling like the first draft of a pastiche written by somebody who's only seen two zombie movies but figures they know enough to have a crack at writing their own anyway. Because if I can't let Crispian Mills get away with using fracking as a plot device, I'm sure as shit not going to let Jim Jarmusch walk out with it under his arm either.

MRS DOUBTFIRE

That cast, though. You've got to assume they were drawn in by either the reputation or existing relationship with the director, rather than reading the script. That's assuming there's a script. Most of the delivery here sounds like the cast are either ad-libbing or having their lines fed directly to them through an earpiece as the camera rolls. It's all deliberate of course, but imaging spending this much money just for Bill Murray to look uncomfortably bored. The film has a few wry chuckles and some good ideas, but doesn't employ the vocabulary it needs to express them properly*¹.

And because there's no structured story, Jim didn't have to write an ending! The film finishes because the characters die, with no drama, excitement or intrigue. A decomposing, stone-cold mess. Not half as clever as it thinks it is, but twice as boring.

I can tell that Jarmusch is trying to provoke the casual audience who will watch this because of its cast, its title or its poster-art. And if anything, I thoroughly respect the product for being precisely what he intended to make.

But The Dead Don't Die is the emperor's new clothes of zombie movies.
Tellingly, transparently so…

Logan Lucky, American Ultra.



No.



Stream it if you must.



*looks over spectacles*.



That's likely.



There isn't.



Level 1: Kylo Ren is in this. There's also a Star Destroyer reference which I imagine is supposed to come off as ironic, but it's as self-indulgent as everything else in the film.





*¹ Now there's a Film-Twat™ thing to say, and I'm delighted it's come while writing about a Jim Jarmusch movie, if only because I know how vehemently yet disdainfully he'd disagree with it... ^{[ BACK ]}

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