Things to Do in Denver When You're Dead
Gary Fleder, USA, 1995, 115 mins; Touchstone Video
Review by Gerald Houghton (1997)
The film the paunchy Pulp Fiction thinks it is, Gary Fleder's striking debut draws unfair comparison with the Dogs and the Suspects: smart-talking post-Tarantino cinema. It's of a piece, yes, but its roots are more existential 70s than 90s nihilist. It's a wistful, melancholic film where murder is a serious business - far from a cartoon-Peckinpah pop-corner like Rodriguez's Desperado. For all of its almost two hours, Denver means it.
The city belongs to wheelchair-bound Man With The Plan (Christopher Walken). He commands erstwhile gangster Jimmy The Saint (Andy Garcia) to pull an action - scare off the boyfriend of his dim-witted son's ex-girlfriend. He picks his old crew: the doomed Easy Wind (Bill Nunn); married trailer park manager Franchise (William Forsythe); Pieces (Christopher Lloyd), a literally decaying porn-projectionist; and mortuary attendant Critical Bill (Treat Williams). As the bodies pile-up, The Man declares "buckwheats" and summons nerdish hit-man Mr Shhh (Steve Buscemi).
Jimmy's gang are effectively finished from the opening: the things they do in Denver are for the dead. That elegiac tone is what elevates Scott Rosenberg's screenplay above the norm; this is a film that, for all its bittersweet humour, takes death soberly. When you're clipped you go out slowly, painfully. Walken, we realise, is the living dead. Running commentary comes both from wry old-timer Joe Heff (Jack Warden) in a favoured malt shop and the pre-mortum videos Jimmy's failing Afterlife Advice business records. Rosenberg's sparkling dialogue is faux-authentic gaol/biker/gang speak.
Carrying a little too much weight, his suits just smart enough, Garcia has never been better. More charm than cool. All the principals are very good, especially the usually manic Lloyd, but the real wonder is perpetual also-ran Treat Williams, driving his first picture since 80s police corruptioner Prince of The City. Hellishly dumb and hair-trigger violent, the childlike Bill is a self-declared Godzilla to Denver's Japan.
With its out-size, Edward Hopper-ish sets, witty scuttlebutt and Fleder's cool, poised direction, Denver has more in common with the Coen's post-modish gangster classic Miller's Crossing than anything else. But it also has real heart, real sadness, and that's what really sets it apart. Give it a name.