Director
Jim Jarmusch
(PATERSON)
Starring
Bill Murray, Adam Driver, Chloë Sevigny and Tilda Swinton
The dead mightn’t die, but I wished I had; it would have saved me from the worlds longest in joke, that turned out to be not particularly funny. Jim Jarmusch’s ‘ironic hipster’ take on the comedy-zombie genre tries way too hard to be something that nobody asked for. A slow-moving affair that goes for the ‘wink, wink, nudge, nudge’ approach to humour, but makes you feel the same way your baby boomer uncle does when he tells a cringey joke at Christmas.
Set in your cliché small town of Centreville, The Dead Don’t Die is at face value a story about a zombie uprising and the local police (Bill Murray, Adam Driver and Chloë Sevigny) who try to stop them. There are side characters who for the most part are simply a device used to feed the zombie hordes, but there is a laziness to their development none the less. It’s almost as if the writer (also Jim Jarmusch) got half way through developing a plot line and then went ‘eh, that’ll do’. This is most evident in the subplot of a trio of juvenile detention center inmates who seemingly are just there and then they’re not. The best part of the film is also the most baffling, with Tilda Swinton appearing as a kick-ass Scottish, mortician Samurai who somewhat resembles an albino Wednesday Adams…..I’ll let you just digest that for a moment.
The Dead Don’t Die appears familiar on the surface. Jarmusch is purposefully going for that retro, George A. Romero meets middle America vibe. The problem is he doesn’t want to do subtlety, so every nod or homage is followed by a slap to the face with an awkward kid screaming at you ‘did you see that, did you get that?’. If Jarmusch spent half as much time working on the writing of the film as he does trying to tell us all how clever he is, this might actually be half-ways decent. Instead this is the greatest waste of acting talent I’ve seen in a film since Movie 43.
Despite the zombie genre being done to death (pardon the pun), there was still scope here for this to be a great film. I can’t help but think how some of the jokes would have had a greater punch with a slight tweak on delivery. I think it might have been better handled if Jarmusch had have stepped aside from his writing and let someone else direct. I can’t help but think of what this could have been with someone like Taika Waititi at the helm.
Sadly this is one of those movies where it’s unclear who the intended audience is. It’s not aimed at fans of zombie movies, and it’s not funny enough to be a comedy, even in its blackest form. I think even fans of Jim Jarmusch would find this a bit much to be honest. I think it’s probably best if Jim just watches it with a small crew of dedicated fanboi’s, that way he can revel in his own self importance as much as he requires.
1.5 Stars
Trailer
THE DEAD DON’T DIE
Moviedoc thanks Universal for the invite to the screening of this film.
Moviedoc 
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