I don’t think it was wrong to expect great things from director Niels Arden Oplev and his English language debut film, “Dead Man Down.” I mean, Oplev is the guy behind the 2009 Swedish take of “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.” And “Dead Man Down,” after all, is a revenge film. _Revenge._ As in, the driving force behind the three movies Oplev is known for.
Now I suppose “Dead Man Down” was not short on action, but it was definitely short on coherence. And chemistry. And emotion — but not for lack of trying. The plot wasn’t necessarily complicated, but none of the characters had discernible motives, which made the entire movie plenty convoluted.
“Dead Man Down” follows hired gun Laszlo Kerick (Colin Farrell) on his quest to murder the crap out of his oblivious, drug-dealing boss Alphonse (Terrence Howard), who was responsible for the deaths of Kerick’s wife and daughter. Alphonse doesn’t recognize him because he cut his hair and changed his name to Victor, which is not nearly as much fun to say as Laszlo. What a disguise.
Victor’s neighbor, Beatrice (Noomi Rapace), comes into play when she blackmails Victor into helping her kill the man who was responsible for disfiguring her face in a drunk driving accident. I went into the movie thinking that this man is the same guy Victor is out for — Alphonse — because the trailer all but flat-out told me that was the case.
It would have made a lot of sense and tied everything together quite nicely, but no. To hell with logic. Two complicated webs is infinitely better than one. Right, Oplev?
Anyway, the acting was decent but nothing more. Farrell was bafflingly serene in the face of all of the brutality (and rather slack-jawed, if we’re being honest) and Rapace was kind of going through the motions. Howard made no impression, and Dominic Cooper as Victor’s associate, Darcy, was the one bright spot in the endless sea of sadness and bullet casings.
Victor and Beatrice dance around each other in what was supposed to be some kind of tense, sexually-charged relationship. But really they just word-vomit at each other and have three full conversations about Tupperware. Watching them interact made me physically uncomfortable, and as a result, their connection came off as unbelievable.
When the dialogue isn’t busy being stilted and the characters aren’t busy developing inexplicable relationships with each other, bullets are flying. The violence is dark and heavy, as if Oplev is reminding you that you’re supposed to be taking the movie seriously.
It doesn’t get too graphic or anything, but it does get pretty brutal. Victor sets some hungry rats on a hostage and also lights a guy on fire. Alphonse orders an entire warehouse full of drug runners to be executed on the spot. Beatrice repeatedly encounters a small gang of kids in her building who call her “monster” and throw rocks at her, proving that children just might be the biggest jerks of them all.
The movie is pretty blue — both literally and metaphorically. The colorcast fits with the dismal tone of the movie, and the cinematography was nice enough to distract me from the plot every now and again. But, for the most part, my viewing experience could be best summed up as “uncomfortable.”
The dialogue felt forced, and there just wasn’t any flair to be found. Maybe my mistake was expecting callous badass extraordinaire Lisbeth Salander from “Girl With The Dragon Tattoo” and instead got Colin Farrell wearing an expression that was slightly reminiscent of Bella Swan. But I still think Oplev could have tried harder to make his characters resonate with one another and, in turn, the viewers.
Alas, all the emotion you’re going to get from this movie is from Beatrice’s interactions with her live-in mother that are almost guaranteed to make you sad. Other than that, it’s just wooden conversations and disjointed action sequences all around. I give “Dead Man Down” two out of five Tupperware containers.