Tote Engel lügen nicht

Q: What do you get if you put a naturaly gifted actress with powerful screen presence, together centre stage with an actor who exudes raw, truthful bearing? A: An extremely interesting and tantilising mind game. Sadly, too few films, since the 1940's, allow both the male & female leads to both shine absolutely equaly, profiting the end result. The culmination of Jones & Madsen's performances is a retro work of art. The casting & editing is vibrant, but this narrative should have been directed by an Art House impresario, because lost in mainstream tv it becomes merely a taxing jigsaw.

PLOT: The two titles are part of the puzzle aspect to this film. For 'Gotham', read as - Goth-ham or Gothic 'ham', as in a noir spoof, or if you equate Gotham with Batman, then evolve this to the catchphrase 'the dynamic duo' and you have the Madsen & Jones chemistry. For 'The Dead Can't Lie', read as - why tell us, unless they can, therefore is this a single or double bluff? These are clues, but they could be a 'red herring'. It's a dark tale about lies within lies and whether there is any point in unraveling them. There are repeated motifs in the dialogue that are inconsistant, so it probably isnt possible to assert the truth, since each character is potentially lieing! Even the music is designed to deliberately mislead!

RATEING: 7/10 as a film, but 9/10 as a brain teaser.

WHO should watch this film?: Adults only, because of content. Women will enjoy the exuberantly feminine power of Madsen, whereas men will enjoy looking at it in action! Watch out for the 'Rubik's Cube', as it's a barometer of Jones' confusion and ours! If you like doing puzzles and can cope if you dont solve them, you will love & watch this film repeatedly.

I first saw Gotham in 1989 and then in 2001 and it stood up well: Gotham is on the one hand an ironic tribute to hard-boiled detective movies, but it chooses to keep its irony under the surface rather than over-the-top, telling a susupenseful and carefully unfolded story with real twists and turns even as it tosses the occasional wink taht we've seen the set-pieces before. There is real suspense as we watch Tommy Lee Jones get in way over his head--he takes it well enough when he discovers, early on, that he is indeed dealing with a malicious ghost--but from there on he is forced to watch with his own investigators detatchemht as he fall in love with this ghost, going down hill physically and every other way step by step--at the end, he is faced with a battle for his soul as serious as Sam Spades faces at the end of "Maltese Falcon"--and, even at the end, the wry humor returns to wrap it all nicely up. By the way--keep yuour eye out for spooky oddities at ther corner of your vision--they are there!

"Eddie Mallard" (Tommy Lee Jones) is a down-on-his-luck private detective who is about to be evicted from his office for failure to pay his rent. Needless to say, he is surprised when a wealth man by the name of "Colin Bruce" (Charlie Rand) walks into his office and offers to pay him a considerable amount of money to simply convince his ex-wife "Rachel Carlyle" (Virginia Madsen) to agree to leave him alone. But what really stuns Eddie is when Colin tells him that Rachel has been dead for ten years. Now, normally any private detective with an ounce of integrity would turn down the job because their prospective client is obviously insane. But being that he is in serious financial straits Eddie takes the job anyway. However, once he finally meets Rachel things begin to take a horrifying turn from that point on. Now rather than reveal any more I will just say that this was a strange film which at times didn't seem to flow well from one scene to the next. Even so both Tommy Lee Jones and Virginia Madsen played their parts quite well and--strange as it was--I enjoyed this film for the most part and have rated it accordingly. Slightly above average.

Gotham usually gets confused with that city-with-a-comic-book-superhero in it. This is a horrible thing for such a terrific movie. It has nothing to do with that comic book! If you love film noir, and can actually FIND this movie(also known as "The Dead Can't Lie")-probably only on a VHS, then you'll be sorry if you DON'T get it!

I love this film because there are so many new things to find each time I watch it. It is a show about a Private Eye who is down on his luck until a man offers him an assignment no one else will take. His job is to find this man's ex-wife, who is continuously stalking him, and try to get her to cease and desist. The problem? She has been dead for 10 years! NO- this isn't some cheesy ghost story,and this is no comedy! It really sucks you in, and leaves you wanting to watch it again. I found Gotham to be an eerie yet believable film which still haunts me every time!!

How do you stop your dead wife from harassing you? Hire a good detective who can tell her to stop. Tommy Lees Jones portrays a down on his luck gumshoe is approached by a man who is being followed by his dead wife. Jones figures if the man is crazy enough to offer his money, he's just crazy enough to help him. Is she dead? Check the refrigerator, take a cruise but stay out of the church. This made-for-tv film keeps you going, wondering just who is seeing things. Don't close your eyes for too long or you just might miss something. If you like a good mystery, this one is a sleeper-keeper. You might have to look on the back shelf of the video store to find it but however it's worth the search. A great movie for a rainy weekend afternoon.