Film
Movie theaters, reviews and showtimes in Chicago, plus articles, trailers and more
- Home
- Box Office
- Listings
- Trailers
- Features
Bookmark this page- Edition:
Kiss of Death (1994)
Director: Barbet Schroeder
Movie review
From Time Out Film Guide
Ex-con Jimmy Kilmartin's a decent guy who'd rather babysit than hijack cars. Lured back for One Last Job - a favour to no-account cousin Ronnie - Jimmy takes a bullet and the fall. Worse, his wife, Bev, dies in an accident after a one-night stand with Ronnie. Jimmy plays the DA off against a psychotic mobster, Little Junior, to execute his revenge from behind bars, which puts him in double jeopardy on his release. Schroeder's honourable, rather onerous remake of Hathaway's gripping film noir is too restrained for its own good - it barely musters a climax - but it's a solid, atmospheric thriller all the same, with smart dialogue by Richard Price and a strong line-up of downbeat actors: Tucci as a DA of questionable integrity, Rhames as a scary drug-dealer, and Jackson as a cop with a weeping eye. Caruso's okay in the lead, but you can feel the weight of the movie (or is it destiny?) on his shoulders; in any case, he, along with the rest, is effectively steamrollered by Cage. 'I have an acronym for myself,' boasts Little Junior: 'Bad: Balls. Attitude. Direction'. I can't vouch for the direction, but he's definitely big on balls and attitude - no one's quite as bad as Nic when he's in this kind of mood: whether bench-pressing bargirls, confiding that he can't stand metal in his mouth, or taking another jolt of oxygen from his inhaler, this is larger-than-life villainy worthy of Elmore Leonard or Carl Hiaasen.Author: TCh
Cast & crew
Director: Barbet Schroeder
Producer: Barbet Schroeder, Susan Hoffman
Cast: David Caruso, Samuel L Jackson, Nicolas Cage, Helen Hunt, Kathryn Erbe, Stanley Tucci, Michael Rapaport, Ving Rhames full cast
Genre(s): Thrillers
Duration: 101 mins
Most popular on this site
Features
Gray's anatomy
James Gray wants to push buttons—again.
The next big thing?
Gigantic Releasing tries to rethink indie distribution…without movie theaters.
Red Diva: Lyubov Orlova, First Lady of Soviet Cinema
So you think you can dance, comrade?
Puppet master
Coraline director Henry Selick takes stop-motion animation into 3-D.
Socratic method
Laurent Cantet's approach on the set matches the message of his film.
Wander woman
Kelly Reichardt's Wendy and Lucy puts a Bush-era spin on the road movie.
Oscars
Read our interviews with the nominees, our reviews of the nominated films and more.
What do you think?
Post your review now