Movie Review: The Dead Don't Die

The Dead Don't Die **** / *****

Directed by: Jim Jarmusch.

Written by: Jim Jarmusch.

Starring: Bill Murray (Chief Cliff Robertson), Adam Driver (Officer Ronnie Peterson), Tom Waits (Hermit Bob), Chloë Sevigny (Officer Mindy Morrison), Steve Buscemi (Farmer Frank Miller), Eszter Balint (Fern), Danny Glover (Hank Thompson), Maya Delmont (Stella), Taliyah Whitaker (Olivia), Jahi Di'Allo Winston (Geronimo), Caleb Landry Jones (Bobby Wiggins), RZA (Dean), Larry Fessenden (Danny Perkins), Rosie Perez (Posie Juarez), Carol Kane (Mallory O'Brien), Rosal Colon (Lily), Tilda Swinton (Zelda Winston), Sara Driver (Female Coffee Zombie), Iggy Pop (Male Coffee Zombie), Selena Gomez (Zoe), Austin Butler (Jack), Luka Sabbat (Zack).

 

George A. Romero apparently had it in mind to make 10 films in his living dead series about zombies – but he only made it to six in his lifetime. But when you watch those six films, you can tell that they change with the times – the underlying themes of each being something that was going on at the time they film were made – from racism to consumerism to military industrial complex, etc. It’s therefore somewhat fitting then that another filmmaker would come along to keep Romero’s spirit alive in the zombie movie realm. And when that filmmaker is Jim Jarmusch, you know you won’t get precisely a Romero clone – but then again, you don’t want one. That’s not what Jarmusch does. What he’s done in The Dead Don’t Die is craft a hilarious, deadpan zombie comedy – that is hugely entertaining and funny, right up until it isn’t anymore. As Adam Driver’s Ronnie keeps telling everyone – “This isn’t going to end well”.

 

The film takes place in small-town Pennsylvania – where the Chief of Police is Cliff (Bill Murray) and his Deputy is Ronnie (Adam Driver) – and their main job is to occasionally go out into the woods and check on Hermit Bob (Tom Waits) to see if he stole some chickens. And even if Hermit Bob shoots at them, they won’t arrest him – he doesn’t mean anything by it after all, and he aims well over their heads. Everything in town seems to revolve around the local diner and hardware store, gas station, and motel. The residents all know each other – and can deal with each other. Even Hank (Danny Glover) gets along with Frank Miller (Steve Buscemi) – even though he wears a read “Make America White Again” baseball hat.

 

But something isn’t right here. The news reports keep talking about Polar Fracking – which according to the science community, has screwed up the rotation of the earth. But don’t worry, the government assures us – that’s not true. And besides, polar fracking has provided plenty of jobs for people. Sure, it’s still broad daylight at 9 pm, but there’s nothing wrong with that. And then, of course, the zombies start showing up – and they never stop.

 

Jarmusch, of course, is one of the key indie filmmakers of the 1980s and 1990s – made even more so by the fact that he never really went to Hollywood – he just kept on making his films his way, and had now for more than 30 years. Personally, I think he’s been doing arguably the best work of his career lately – Only Lovers Left Alive and Paterson are among the very best films of his career. The Dead Don’t Die is up to that level – but it’s still unmistakably a Jarmusch film. If you’re on his humor wavelength, then The Dead Don’t Die is a deadpan comedy classic – with Murray and Driver seemingly trying to see who can out deadpan the other best. You can add Tilda Swinton as a samurai sword wielding Scottish undertaker to her list of genuinely strange, genuinely great off-kilter performances. The supporting cast is filled with stars who are perfectly cast in their roles – from Buscemi and Glover, to Selena Gomez to Larry Fessenden to RZA to Chloe Sevigny to Caleb Landry Jones to Carol Kane and Iggy Pop. Jarmusch casts his films as well as any director in the world – he knows precisely what each role needs.

 

Jarmusch is poking us in the ribs with his jokes here – he’s mocking the genre that he clearly loves, as well as us in the audience. His jokes get meta – as when Adam Driver helpfully informs Bill Murray that the song on the radio sounds familiar because it’s the theme song (we in the audience has heard it before – Murray hasn’t) – or when Driver reveals exactly how he knows that things are going to end badly.

 

In a way, then, Jarmusch is comforting us with the film – putting in through the expected motions, with his own twist on it of course. And you think that the film is perhaps too simple for Jarmusch – which of course, it is. But as the film keeps going and keeps going, we expect other things to happen as well – and they don’t. And Driver, of course, has been right all along, and we only get it when it’s too late. And that, of course, is the point of the whole movie. The final line says it all. And whose fault is that?