Film

Meet Joe Black (1998)

Director: Martin Brest

Movie review

From Time Out Film Guide

On the eve of his 65th birthday, media magnate William Parrish (Hopkins) feels heart tremors giving him notice to quit. In the meantime, he tells daughter Susan (Forlani) that her fiancé, his right-hand man Drew (Weber), is not quite right for her, which she too realises when sparks fly with a complete stranger in a New York café. After they part, she fails to notice him being run over and killed; even so, she's still surprised when he turns up at her father's house for dinner. In fact, Death (Pitt) has arrived in town for a look around. He's using the young man's body and has chosen Hopkins as his guide. Four writers have adapted Mitchell Leisen's 1934 film Death Takes a Holiday and spun it out to three hours. The result is seductively luxurious, with Hopkins bringing authority to his portrait of a man facing his end, and Pitt teasingly enigmatic as the force of mortality in human guise. But the drama's various elements - fantasy thriller, romantic fable, corporate shoot-out, family reconciliation - fail to pull together, and the interminable finale is simply soft in the head.

---

• 
•