Available at Amazon.com
Director:
Jon Keeyes
Starring:
Edward Furlong….Sam
Bai Ling….Nadia
Michael Madsen….Agent Lind
Arnold Vosloo….Det. Rick Devlin
Jordana Spiro….Mary Jane
Curtis Wayne….Karl Schroder
Trent Haaga….Max Reichmann
HBO Video presents Living and Dying. Screenplay by Jon Keeyes. Running time: 90 minutes. Rated R. Release date: December 26, 2007.
The Movie
Evil, it seems, needs to be judged in context; at least, that’s what the makers of Living and Dying want us to believe. After all, the majority of people would consider bank robbery to be an evil–or at least morally objectionable–action. However, when compared to people who rape and murder, men and women who rob banks suddenly don’t seem as insidious. These moral gray areas are what the movie tries to explore, but in the end it winds up being nothing more than a nasty little crime drama with clunky dialog and plot holes so large they can be seen from space.
Sam and Nadia are lovers who plan to rob the payroll office of the richest man in town, Nicholai Duca. But their scheme quickly takes a turn for the worse when the police show up sooner than expected, forcing Sam, Nadia, and the rest of their crew to take refuge in a nearby cafe.
At first it looks like Sam will be forced to take the people in the cafe hostage, but due to unbelievably bad luck, Max and Karl, two career criminals who are far more dangerous than any of the bank robbers, take control of the situation and Sam and Nadia now become hostages.
That is just the first of many plot twists in the movie and pretty much all of them make about as much sense. Too much of this movie relies on synchronicity or events happening off camera to drive the plot, and these lead to far too many unanswered questions, keeping this from being a satisfying movie.
Even more troubling, though, is the amount of misogyny perpetrated by the two villains, Karl and Max. In particular there is a brutal rape scene that was so explicit and disturbing I had to fast forward through it. That is just one example–albeit a major one–among several small, disturbing moments throughout the entire movie. Practically all of the violence is inflicted on women, and when Karl and Max are the ones inflicting that violence, it is done in an almost loving way; while this behavior is true to the characters, that doesn’t make it any easier to watch.
I could possibly forgive the violence if the overall script and acting had been better, but none of the actors did a great job on this movie. Their performances range from dull to mediocre, and I blame this on the quality of the dialogue. Far too much of the dialogue is used to force the plot along or drop large, unwieldy chunks of information that the writer couldn’t think of any other way to convey. Add to that moments of forced humor, and you have a very clunky, unnatural script.
There’s just not a lot to recommend about this movie which is rather surprising considering the caliber of films that HBO usually produces. Do yourself a favor and avoid this one.
The DVD
Video
The video quality is a little flat, especially with the colors, but otherwise it’s fine. The movie was presented in widescreen 16:9 aspect ratio.
Audio
Like the video the audio quality is technically fine but doesn’t do a lot to distinguish itself. The sound was presented in 5.1 surround. Most of the audio stayed in the center channel and there was no discernable directionality.
Extra Features
Audio Commentary with Director Jon Keeyes
This is pretty standard commentary fare. The most interesting parts are where he talks about how he used different colors and camera movements for the film’s three main locations to create various effects like claustrophobia or danger.
A Day in the Life of “Living and Dying” (running time: 12:39)
Jon Keeyes speaks quite a bit about the social-economic undertones he tried to insert into this story, but the best part is Michael Madsen talking about how much fun he had on set and how Keeyes is a “good guy.”
