I Love You to Death

In the only feature film of his career that could be classified as a comedy River Phoenix called I Love You To Death a 'whacked out comedy'. Who am I to disagree.

Kevin Kline and Tracey Ullman are the stars of I Love You To Death and he's the exponential alpha male owner of a pizzeria in Tacoma, Washington where for the female customers he makes personal deliveries. With a cheesy Italian accent, probably deliberately so, Kline charms all the women who buy pizza to give their all to him. Mind you he still loves his wife. But there isn't a pair of breasts between 18 and 45 he can't pass up.

In I Love You To Death Ullman has decided she's up to HERE with Kline's serial infidelities. She and her mother Joan Plowright decides he has to die. They enlist the aid of pizzeria employee River Phoenix who plays a new age kid type, not terribly far from the real life River Phoenix although he didn't think so.

I believe that director Lawrence Kasdan must have read an account of the murder of Rasputin because in real life it took all kinds of things to put him down. They were more successful than this team of assassins were with Kline.

Adding to the hilarity when Phoenix enlists them to help are brain dead druggies William Hurt and Keanu Reeves. The three of them trying to get the job done on Kline is very funny. Reeves and Phoenix met on this film and the next project for both would be My Own Private Idaho the best film both of them ever did.

Dame Joan Plowright a.k.a Lady Olivier is also very funny with another cheesy accent. She's from Yugoslavia and no matter which ethnicity the former polyglot republic had, they're all vengeful people.

In the end though all is forgiven. You have to see the film to know what I'm talking about.

This has got to be one of the great all time classics in a Dark Humor Comedy. Dark Humor, because of the ultimate theme in this movie which is to kill her cheatin man. Joan Plowright steels the show with her skills in her Yugoslavic dialect, and her uncanny talent to support other characters in the movie. She plays the live-in Mother of Tracy Ullmans charater, (Rosalie) who is married to Joey Boca, (played by Kevin Kline). Kline's performance is outstanding as would be expected, and Tracey Ullman never ceases to amaze me. Put that together with the late but very talented River Phoenix who plays the role of the busboy in the Boca's Pizza Parlor who is very in love with Rosalie; and you have one fine mix of fun, mayhem, and laughter, as they all take turns in trying to knock off Joey. But then if that wasn't enough, they then seek outside help, which only gets more funnier, as Keanu Reeves and William Hurt try to come to the aid, playing druged out druggies, who together make Dumb and Dumber look like Yale graduates. How this movie ends is the best of it all. I Love this Movie to Death...:-), well maybe not that much but try it you'll like/love it.

Remarkably, the film is based on a real event. But it takes off from that base and becomes a screwball comedy in the classic style.

Wonderfully droll performances are given by everyone in this Hitchcock-like farce about a murder that doesn't quite work and a man who just won't die. Joan Plowright steals every scene she is in -- which isn't easy in a film that is full of so many zany plot twists and hilarious lines of dialogue.

This film is a little gem of a comedy. See it if you can.

I'm not surprised that no one has commented on this movie because it didn't make much noise when it came, nor when it disappeared, but if you've got the chance do rent it, pleas do, it's a little jewel of a movie. The movie claims to be based on a true story and it probably is. Tracey Ullman plays the wife of a pizza man who decides to kill her husband when she finds out he's cheating on her. She's cheered on by her morbid Yugoslav mother and aided by her admirer, the new age bus boy at the pizza place. But everything goes wrong. The actors are excellent and Kevin Kline is SO funny as the macho Italian and River Phoenix is perfect as the love struck wannabe killer. I've seen the movie a couple of times and I always laugh until I fall off my bed when I see Keanu Reeves and William Hurt as the two cousins with one brain cell (together) who are called in to finish the husband off. It has to be seen! There is no glamour in this movie. People look completely real and they live in a house that looks totally normal, full of toys and ugly furniture. Don't be put off by the title. See it, you won't be disappointed.

In spite of Kevin Kline's fractured Italian accent, this is one of the funniest movies ever. It is a true story. I've seen the couple interviewed on two television programs.....they are exactly as Kevin Kline and Tracy Ullman depicted them. I have shown this tape to guests and most recently to a large group of seniors. My popularity rate has moved up a notch or two because of choosing this movie. It's a "feel good and leave you laughing" story. Well worth a trip and a search at the video store.