Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, April 22, 1995 TAG: 9504260038
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: B-7 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: KATHERINE REED STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
In fact, from the very start, this new film from Barbet Schroeder - director of the awful "Single White Female" and the awe-inspiring "Barfly" - seems tired and pedestrian, as if everyone involved were just too tired to make a movie. Two hours of average television, yes. A movie, no.
And certainly the script (by Richard Price, who wrote "Sea of Love" and "Mad Dog and Glory") didn't provide much inspiration. It's the story of a struggling ex-convict named Jimmy Kilmartin (David Caruso) who is led astray by an old buddy from his car-stealing days.
Kilmartin leaves his infant daughter with a babysitter so he can go help the friend steal a bunch of cars. He gets caught, of course, while the "friend" - Ronnie (Michael Rapaport) - gets away. Jimmy refuses to betray Ronnie to the police (there's so much honor among thieves), but that doesn't stop Ronnie from bedding Jimmy's distraught wife Bev (Helen Hunt), who has just fallen off the wagon.
One terrible thing after another occurs, and Jimmy unmethodically tries to get revenge and get free by letting an unscrupulous prosecutor use him to snag a big fish named Little Junior (Nicolas Cage).
(Little Junior's Dad's name is Big Junior. Heh heh.)
Basically what it all comes down to is that everyone - except Jimmy - is scum. Ho hum. Really, among movie themes there may be no bigger cliche or easier creative cop-out than this one: Pit little Person With a Past against a bunch of evil guys with all the power. Person With a Past just needs A SECOND CHANCE to prove he/she is really a good he/she and evil guys will get their just deserts.
There are several variations on the theme, rarely of much interest. To make matters worse in the case of "Kiss of Death," Caruso as Person With a Past exudes a vulnerability that is neither complex nor compelling. He just seems like a whiner with a twitchy face.
As for Cage, who is always so lovable and funny, the problem is that even when his sociopathic Little Junior is being really creepy and nasty, he's still lovable and funny. He has to use an asthma inhaler. He hates the taste of metal in his mouth and must use plastic cutlery. That's just endearing, I'm sorry.
"Kiss of Death," a remake of a1947 version starring Richard Widmark, would just love to be mean and stylish - in the vein of "Pulp Fiction" or "The Last Seduction" - but it isn't, and some poor editor named Lee Percy was left to paste it all together and try to make it look like something. But it doesn't look like anything.
Except like something you've seen a thousand times before.
Kiss of Death * 1/2
A Paramount Pictures release showing at Salem Valley 8. 100 min. Rated R for violence and profanity.
by CNB