Film review: Dead Man Down fails to break action mould
Andrew Sun
Starring: Colin Farrell, Noomi Rapace, Terrence Howard
Director: Niels Arden Oplev
Category: IIB
Dead Man Down is a curious thing. It's an ordinary revenge thriller trying ever so hard to not be an ordinary revenge thriller.
Victor (Colin Farrell) is the right-hand man to a New York drug lord named Alphonse (Terrence Howard), but secretly he is plotting elaborate revenge against his gangland boss for destroying his once-happy life as a family man. Living across from two-faced Victor's sad-sack apartment is disfigured Beatrice (Swedish actress Noomi Rapace), who learns of his scheme and blackmails him into adding the drunk driver who mangled her face to his hit list.
The revenge part is only mildly thrilling. There are lots of cleverer tales about ordinary people outsmarting the brawn and guns of underworld baddies in the name of personal justice.
Dead Man Down eschews vengeance as a macho, empowering pursuit. Instead, retribution for Victor is an unavoidable burden. In the austere and almost sullen tone of Farrell's performance, Danish director Niels Arden Oplev - who helmed the original film adaptation of Swedish author Stieg Larsson's The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo - tips his European aesthetics.
Dead Man Down is like two films stitched together: a cynical anti-romance drama and a conventional shoot-'em-up action flick.