edited by Jonathan Doyle

Classe tous risques (The Criterion Collection, 6.17.2008) Claude Sautet is best known for subtle interpretations of French bourgeois life in such films as Un coeur en hiver and Nelly & Monsieur Arnaud. Yet the director began his career with genre films. Classe Tous Risques, released in 1960, is considered the best of his early work and it's a fascinating companion to similar crime movies made around the same time by Jean-Pierre Melville. (continued)

Upcoming

July 2

Hancock

July 3

The Whackness

July 4

Diminished Capacity

Gonzo: The Life and Work of Hunter S. Thompson

Holding Trevor

Kabluey

We are Together

July 9

Full Battle Rattle

July 11

A Man Named Pearl

August

Eight Miles High

Garden Party

Harold

Hellboy II: The Golden Army

Journey to the Center of the Earth

Meet Dave

Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired

The Stone Angel

July 18

A Very British Gangster

Before I Forget

The Dark Knight

The Doorman

Felon

Lou Reed's Berlin

Transsiberian

July 22

Two Tickets to Paradise

July 23

Boy A

Dahl and "You Kill Me"

email this story
read comments (19)
post a comment

Roughly 75% of the the critics are supportive of John Dahl's You Kill Me, the dark and somewhat skewed Ben Kingsley- Tea Leoni comedy about a Buffalo-based hitman trying to recover from alcoholism during an attempted dry-out in San Francisco. I mean, 75-25 is a pretty good RT average.

Ben Kingsley, Tea Leoni

That's more or less how I feel myself, having found it mostly likable, amusing, agreeable...but with a few undeniable speed-bumps. And yet Kingsley is one of our absolute best -- he seems incapable of delivering a line or an emotion that doesn't have some kind of unexpected edge or inflection or flavoring -- and the film itself is a nicely sardonic, above-average adult dramedy, which is enough to warrant a pass.

And yet I've had trouble trying to write something about it the last week or so. And there's always a reason for the foot-dragging syndrome. In this case "reasons," which I'll get into shortly. But being the son of an alcoholic and a veteran of more than a few Al-Anon meetings over the past few months (and during a period in the mid '80s), I feel a certain kinship with You Kill Me.

So to pay it the proper respect, I finally got off my ass and arranged (with the much-appreciated assistance of publicist Karen Oberman) to do a phoner with director John Dahl, and here it is.

I said after seeing You Kill Me that I'm feeling "hit-manned out" -- tired of character studies of personable, regular-joe, emotionally vulnerable professional assassins in mainstream movies. There's no recognizable metaphor in making a film about a hitman -- it's just a stock, post-Tarantino convention that conveys a generic dark- thrill factor. I think it's lazy to go there at this point in time.

John Dahl

The sympathetic portraits of gangland assassins by Samuel L. Jackson and John Travolta in Pulp Fiction was, I think, the first in this vein. Three years later John Cusack played a broadly comedic GenX hitman in Grosse Point Blank. I'd begun to tire of the idea by the time Richard Shepard's The Matador -- a dark comedy about a burnt-out hitman (Pierce Brosnan) who beriends a middle-class married guy (Gregg Kinnear) -- came along. So it was hard for me to absorb You Kill Me with any kind of fresh, open-to-new-things attitude.

Plus I didn't believe that Tea Leoni's youngish-looking character (Leoni is 41 but looks 35) would fall for Kingsley's with Kingsley himself being 63 and pretty much looking it, and also being an alcoholic assassin. I wanted to buy it, but I couldn't. I could see it happening if Kingsley looked ten years younger and had lied to Leoni about the seriousness of his drinking problem and what he does for a living... maybe. But no relatively sane woman would be so self-destructive as to hook up with a guy like Kingsley's soused hitman...no way.

Plus I found it silly that Kingsley's character would admit his profession to his Alcoholics Anonymnous group on the presumption that no one would tell anyone else about it because of the AA confidentiality thing.

But I worship Kingsley the actor and I can't help but warm to stories about healing (my all-time favorite being Tender Mercies), and so here I am banging this out at 8:58 ayem, knowing I have to get out of here and down to the Apple store at the Grove so I can take a picture or a video of the I-Phone customers lined up outside.

Friday numbers<< previous | next >>I-Phone sitdown

Posted by Jeffrey Wells on June 29, 2007 at 07:50 AM

comment #1

chicbn872 says ...

Ah yes, the iPhone! The most anticipated geek/yuppie product in the last three months!

Posted by chicbn872 at June 29, 2007 09:07 AM

comment #2

erniesouchak says ...

Leoni is terrific, and if she can make me believe she'd love Nic Cage (in the otherwise wretched Family Man), she can make me believe she'd love crusty old Ben. I don't think there's a better comedic actress out there, and who knows what she can do with drama?

Posted by erniesouchak at June 29, 2007 09:17 AM

comment #3

cjKennedy says ...

You Kill Me might've played better 10 years ago when it was originally written. Even so, I liked it. Kingsley was great and so was Leoni. I actually bought her attraction for Kingsley as unlikely as it was, partly because she's crazy.

Posted by cjKennedy at June 29, 2007 09:20 AM

comment #4

T. S. Idiot says ...

If Leoni can be Woody's ex-wife in Hollywood Ending, being Ben's cutie is a breeze.

Posted by T. S. Idiot at June 29, 2007 09:25 AM

comment #5

nemo says ...

"I have to get out of here and down to the Apple store at the Grove so I can take a picture or a video of the I-Phone customers lined up outside."

Whoa, you're going to the Apple store for no other reason than to take pictures of the line of iPhone customers? What is this, the new Harry Potter novel, but for adults? Are the eager iPhone customers going to dress up in geeky costumes? Why isn't Apple holding this at midnight?

Posted by nemo at June 29, 2007 09:49 AM

comment #6

Pelham123 says ...

"You Kill Me" was good, the casting was great -- Ben Kingsley, Tea Leoni, Bill Pullman, Dennis Farina, & Philip Baker Hall. A really entertaining movie with a lot of dark belly laughs.

Posted by Pelham123 at June 29, 2007 10:18 AM

comment #7

Jay T. says ...

I'll give it a shot - John Dahl directed Rounders afterall...

Posted by Jay T. at June 29, 2007 10:18 AM

comment #8

RoyBatty says ...

I don't think you could have picked a more perfect shot of Dahl to run with this post after reading (haven't gotten around to listening to the mp3) your recap of the interview. It says "If that's how you feel, then why the fuck did you want to talk to me about it?"

Now, having learned to read a Wells' muttering over time, I'm sure you think the "I can't help but warm to stories about healing" CYA statement is your caveat out. But all I can think IS why would you go through the trouble of setting up an interview (unless it was prearranged along with the screening) to talk to a director of an independent film if all you were going to do was try to kill it with a death of a thousand cuts?

To big picture this, what purpose was pissing on most of this film (which you do call "a nicely sardonic, above-average adult dramedy") going to accomplish? Here's a filmmaker who has consistantly made middling to good movies for adults (and his one younger skewing flick, JOY RIDE, was above-mediocre for a thriller), apparently again with this one. This isn't TRANSFORMERS where Murphy, Bay and Speilberg see rivers of cash building them second & third homes in Wyoming or Costa Rica from the toy tie-ins.

Considering that it is an IFC film, it's a true "rising tide lifts all boats" scenario where the recoupment of KILL ME funds will either directly or by example help investment of other independents. It's one thing to weigh in on the film's artistic merits and your comments while not a rave would still fall into the 75% favorable camp (what the hell is RT?).

But to then take the extra step of doing an interview that leaves an overall negative impression for would-be viewers really begs the question, "Hey, what the fuck, dude?"

Posted by RoyBatty at June 29, 2007 10:52 AM

comment #9

RoyBatty says ...

Addendum - I wrote that in the "sign-in mood" where only the other comments are visible and didn't realize the entire thing is framed by KILL ME AGAIN banner ads.

Talk about taking a dump in the hand that feeds you...

Posted by RoyBatty at June 29, 2007 10:56 AM

comment #10

RoyBatty says ...

Addendum - I wrote that in the "sign-in mood" where only the other comments are visible and didn't realize the entire thing is framed by YOU KILL ME banner ads.

Talk about taking a dump in the hand that feeds you...

Posted by RoyBatty at June 29, 2007 10:57 AM

comment #11

malibugigolo says ...

Roy:

I agree with you. I make it a point to support movies based on original scripts.

And Wells: Red Rock West, HELLO?

Posted by malibugigolo at June 29, 2007 11:24 AM

comment #12

Rob says ...

I'll see it in the hopes that Dahl fulfills some of his promise from The Last Seduction, and Leoni fulfills some of hers from Flirting with Disaster. She's a compulsively watchable live-wire actress who's been abused by some terrible scripts and inept, bordering-on-sadistic directors (ahem, James L. Brooks).

Posted by Rob at June 29, 2007 11:29 AM

comment #13

NYCBusybody says ...

Wells is an alcoholic? Hmmm....

Posted by NYCBusybody at June 29, 2007 11:44 AM

comment #14

gruver1 says ...

Wells to NYCBusybody: Are you an idiot? Most people will agree there's a bit of a difference between an alcoholic going to AA and the son of an alcoholic going to Al-Anon meetings. Did you know that? That there's a difference between the two, I mean? Wait...am I going too fast?

Posted by gruver1 at June 29, 2007 12:53 PM

comment #15

GeeseOPlenty says ...

Really, the only reason I come here is the warm, supportive rapport between Wells and his readers. It's like the end of a Lifetime TV movie but less Judith Light!

Posted by GeeseOPlenty at June 29, 2007 01:14 PM

comment #16

RoyBatty says ...

Nice one, Geese.

NYCBusybody - I want to believe that GOPers have working brains, but damn if you don't try your hardest to disprove my theory.

And Wells? Still waiting on that apology, bub. And the way karma is treating me this week, you might not want to push your luck here because it's dawned on me you have no idea who I am stripped of my cover...

Posted by RoyBatty at June 29, 2007 04:09 PM

comment #17

NYCBusybody says ...

Huh, I'll be. I'd never in my life heard of Al=Anon. I guess if I have, I'd always assumed it was just short for Alcoholics Anonymous and was the same thing as AA.

I still believe Wells is an alcoholic, though. It would explain his idiocy. Mine derives from sheer, good old-fashioned not paying attention.

Posted by NYCBusybody at June 29, 2007 05:31 PM

comment #18