As Good as Dead

I recommend this film highly, not sure why all the hate. There are good performances and it touches on something which exists in our society today, whether people choose to see the reality or not.

Cary Elwes is a photojournalist who lives in NYC and is on the verge of being evicted. He lives with a daughter and is estranged from his wife. The film starts as he drops his daughter off to be with her mother. He has a golden retriever named "Mao".

We see flashbacks of an earlier pivotal incident which involves Brian Cox (always excellent, look for him in "Manhunter" and "The Minus Man" with Mercedes Ruehl and Owen Wilson as a serial killer).

Cox is an evangelical preacher, preaching hate, and that change in America can start with "just one match" and other such comments, along the lines of David Duke. His wife is Andie McDowell, and she has a son who we now see in NYC is 18 years old. He and his mother survived the attack but "an eye for eye" dictates they must now avenge the violence, and death of their religious leader.

I will not divulge the outcome but the theme here is interesting. Frank Whaley also belongs to this religious group and in NYC he tells Elwes "I was saved in prison my leader, he was a good man". He is a zealot, but resents anyone in New York who isn't "like him". He berates the local the news stand owner, "this city is "filled with foreigners" he remarks ignorantly.

McDowell is surprisingly good here, a southern woman with values about to be toppled, she has survived the horror of third degree burns over most of her body.

The director and writer have ventured into territory which is real here. Preaching hatred and violence leads to nothing, but death. Whether you are in New York City or Alabama.9/10.

This film keeps you guessing from the start. It never dwells too long on any point, so it never gets dull or tedious.

In general terms, it's a murder mystery in reverse that's a combination of horror and psycho-thriller.

In terms of acting and direction, nothing seems artificial or forced as tends to be the case whenever a little girl and a dog are involved. The director does an excellent job of blending the cute, mass appeal elements with the rest of the film so nothing becomes overly cutesy or fake.

Possibly the best part is that all the twists, even those that don't seem to make sense, end up making sense, including the title. It's a rare film that would work very well as a book.

While the general premise, in other words, the motivating factors of the antagonists, is quite good in that it's atypical, interesting, and makes a lot of sense as the motivating factor for these people to make the protagonist's life a living hell for most of the running time of this film, it was thrown into a ridiculously overstaged package.

Firstly, the guy they're after just HAPPENS to be one of two of the last holdouts preventing the demolition of a building in the way of a big real estate venture. And why is he in this position unlike virtually every single other apartment dweller in New York? So the bad guys can make as much noise and be as sloppy as they want while they interrogate the guy in his apartment without having to fear any intervention by police or neighbours. Regardless, if they wanted to interrogate him and not kill him outright, to avoid getting caught, the only sensible option would be to isolate him on his own, probably at night, throw him into a van, and drag him out into the country or the woods.

However, these criminals clearly WANT to get caught since they don't even wear gloves. One of them reveal's he's an ex-con who REALLY doesn't want to go back to prison, so to me, right off the bat this movie becomes impossible to take seriously. In addition to this, they happen to be very LUCKY and strangely brazen as they break into this guy's apartment a mere 30 seconds after the police visit him, and it happens to be the one time his door isn't locked for fear of his landlord's goons, and only because his dog distracted him. Another example of how lucky they are, is when the mother and daughter show up and the daughter runs away with one of the bad guys following her. She runs into a woman and doesn't ask for help or say what's going on, and simply waits for the bad guy to catch up, who pretends to be her father and calmly walk her back into the building. This really made no sense at all.

Also, The way the protagonist escapes being bound by suddenly producing a pocket knife that seemed to come out of nowhere and breaking free at the perfect time seemed so ordained to happen as yet another tacked on plot device. I won't give away who comes out on top at the end, but it's important to note that burning bodies doesn't wash away their identity, as their teeth would almost always be able to match their dental records, so to be effective you would have to individually pull out the teeth from the dead bodies.

this film would be a total waste of time altogether if it wasn't for the presence of Frank Whaley who's acting is simply amazing, and I'm surprised he's not more widely recognized because as a character actor he's right up there. Andie Macdowell as the mother on the other hand basically came across as a lame phony southern caricature, which seemed false and irritating. Altogether, It's an OK film for one time viewing, as you certainly don't get bored, but if you're a thinking person you might want to give this one a miss, because the staginess, and the characters stupid actions which I didn't fully get into, will irritate you.

It's nice to see Frank Whaley in this one. If you only know him from the Kevin Spacey movie (Swimming with Sharks), you might be in for a surprise. He is really versatile, a great actor. While Cary Elwes is the protagonist, Frank kinda steals the show. Not that Cary isn't "good" in this, it's just the Frank show.

I don't tend to write anything about the story or the plot, because I don't want to spoil anything and in this case here, writing a little bit about it, would spoil quite a bit about the movie. What I can and will say though is, that contrary to another reviewer here, I didn't like the opening scene. Not because of the actors, but it just didn't feel right. It's a scene, you have seen quite a few times done before and even Brian Cox, an amazing actor, can't help it. The scene just doesn't work for me. But of course, it's a pivotal scene to the movie.

In hindsight, there are many things that work quite nice and don't fall apart, if you know what the movie is all about. The problem is, you might kinda feel where this is going. Especially if you've seen a few movies, that deal with similar issues.

What kind of sicko writes ship like this???? I mean REALLY? Who produces, directs, shoots, acts, and edits movies like this? Some people have spent weeks or months of their lives working on this dark, disturbing movie - which really has NO redeeming qualities. My wife and I kept thinking that at some point, something would happen that would make it interesting or worth watching, but it just made us uncomfortable and sick all the way through.

One line at the end of the movie was put in to make us feel like there was some big plot twist or revelation, but in reality, the whole movie was disgusting.

There's plenty of unfortunate, unavoidable violence and drama in the world without spending millions making movies with the intention of creating tension and suspense.

Grow up Hollywood.

Don't waste your time or mind walking down through this darkness. It's pointless and hopeless.

Probably the most pointless film in history.