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Movie review: ‘You Kill Me’
BY MAGGIE SCOTT
Frank Falenczyk (Ben Kingsley) has a problem. He’s got killer’s block. Once the efficient hit man for a once-powerful Polish gang in Buffalo, Frank has hit the alcoholic skids. He can’t even clear the snow off his sidewalk without lubricating himself with a shot of vodka for each shovel-full.
His uncle Roman (Philip Baker Hall) has had it. Frank being sloshed on his own time is one thing. But letting the booze put Frank under the steering wheel as it were before he can take out the gang’s primary and most enraging rival, O’Leary (Dennis Farina), is more than family loyalty can forgive.
“You Kill Me” is director John Dahl’s dark-humored, not entirely original, take on a leopard not changing its spots exactly, just rearranging them a bit. The origins of Frank’s problem are not clear, but what is clear is that he’s sick of himself.
Roman has ordered Frank to get sober at an Alcoholics Anonymous group in San Francisco. Other elements of the plan involve a job at a funeral parlor and a babysitter with a bully complex (Bill Pullman) and a killer’s instinct for real estate.
Frank knows how to handle a wannabe thug like Dave, and he’s seeing a different side of corpses than he’s been used to up to this point. Some of the mourners he encounters at the parlor’s wakes show him that some people don’t feel much more for the deceased than he used to. Although he’s catching himself thinking a few sober thoughts about death and whether or not anyone would mourn him once he’s gone, Frank is still having a hard time taking this conversion thing seriously.
Until SHE walks into Rainford’s Funeral Home carrying some stolen bowling shoes to complete her stepfather’s viewing ensemble (he was an avid bowler; and it’s to make her mother happy). Laurel (Tea Leoni) is also burned out on life .
Frank senses a kindred spirit. He also senses that somehow she won’t freak out if he’s honest about who he is and what he’s done. Her eyes might widen, her jaw might drop, but learning that Frank is a dipsomaniac who kills people for a living doesn’t make Laurel look for the nearest exit (“nobody’s perfect”).
Frank comes clean about being an assassin at his AA group. Not only that he kills, but that he’s good at it and enjoys it. Since an AA meeting is all about not judging, Frank begins to discover the power of confession and being accepted, not condemned.
That gives him the freedom to understand what’s important for him. And, besides his new and unfamiliar (“I’ve never done this sober, before”) attachment to Laurel, Frank is realizing he regrets how he was killing people “badly;” that he was failing to practice the “precision” he values. As the relationship gets serious, Laurel becomes Frank’s pupil in the assassination arts.
Just as Frank enjoys a moment of sober success strong arming a city supervisor over a piece of property Dave has a hankering for, Laurel has a crisis with her old issue of emotional boundaries. How hard and how far will both of them fall off the wagon? And, how will Frank meet the challenge of taking care of O’Leary once and for all? Even though the relationship itself is endearing, with its wit, an erotic undercurrent and smart dialogue, the chemistry between Kingsley and Leoni feels forced.
There’s also an uncomfortable disconnect between the grisly, somewhat clichéd, mob violence and the flip humor with which it is conveyed. But, when the smoke clears and the couple walk off (backwards) down one of San Francisco’s steep hills, one has to admit they would like to see what the next chapter holds for Frank and Laurel. An IFC Films release, rated R for violence, language.
