Dead Man Down
(2013)
The Girl With the
Dragon Tattoo's Niels Arden Oplev must really like pulp fiction. He takes
something as lurid and preposterous as Stieg Larsson’s novel and treats the
characters and story as with tasteful restraint. Such respectfulness encourages
the viewer to treat it in kind, even if instinctively it’s clear that this is
all rather trashy. Dead Man Down is the
kind of material that could easily have been washed up as straight-to-video
fare with a Statham or a Lundgren. It’s a less than subtle script that he
chooses for his first English language film but Oplev maintains a sombre,
reflective tone and so makes the somewhat absurd plot more palatable. If it’s
not immediately obvious why he would
be attracted to it, maybe it’s the
opportunity, as with Lisbeth Salander, to achieve emotional resonance where
there would usually be none.
J.H. Wyman’s screenplay pulls off some neat misdirection. In
particular, the first 20 minutes set the tale moving without clear bearings;
it’s actually a pleasant change not to have the rhyme and reason of the
characters spelt out instantly. Elsewhere, there’s little to remind one of the
sterling work he turned in throughout the recently ended TV series Fringe. Perhaps a science fiction canvas
allowed such excesses to seem less glaring, because no one’s going to admit
that the scenario he has come up with here is very likely. Victor, Colin
Farrell’s Hungarian engineer, is out for revenge against Alphonse, Terrence
Howard’s crime boss. To that end, he has inveigled himself into Alphonse’s
organisation. His long game takes an unexpected turn when Beatrice, Noomi
Rapace’s scarred beautician, reveals evidence of him murdering an associate in
his apartment. If he doesn’t kill the man who left her disfigured, she will
turn it in to the police. With Beatrice breaching his defences and his criminal
associates getting closer to discovering the identity of whoever is preying on
them, Victor finds himself in an increasingly desperate situation.
Farrell is buttoned down, his usual expressiveness suppressed
beneath an immovable mask. He's rather good, as he usually is when he's not in
a blockbuster. If Rapace doesn't quite connect, it’s in part because her
character is not allowed the desperation and misery she really needs to
contemplate such measures. And she's not nearly uglified enough to make the
insults of "Monster!" plausible.
There’s also strong support from Terence Howard, Dominic Cooper, Armand Assante
and the always magnificent but ever-underused F Murray Abraham.
Victor's revenge plan is too intricate to be really likely
to succeed, but Oplev ensures that it plays out suspensefully (there’s an
excellent, tension-filled conversation piece between Victor and Alphonse in an
empty office) until we reach a ridiculously overblown climax (of all the
possible outcomes I envisaged, this one was very nearly the last). Which is
good fun but seems like it muscled its way in from an entirely different movie.
Paul Cameron’s cinematography evokes a rich grey melancholy.
The overcast gloom and creeping darkness
is a character in itself, there’s a kind of beautiful despair to the imagery,
lending a feeling that none of this can end well. I can only think that
producer Neal Moritz offered the directing gig to Oplev by mistake, since this
couldn’t be more different in tone to his usual fare (well, until the finale). This
is the guy behind the Fast & Furious
franchise and I suspect he was envisaging something slicker, punchier and less
introspective. Dead Man Down
(terrible title, but fitting the sort of film this might have been) is
ultimately let down by being very goofy, but the clash of styles ensures you’re
never quite sure how this one will pan out until it’s too late.
***
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