Fluffing up a bit from his previous Oscar performance in “Gandi” (1982) and, more to the point, his tour-de-force performance as psycho gangster Don Logan in “Sexy Beast” (2000), Ben Kingsley takes on a warmer, softer gangster role in this romantic gangster comedy.
Borrowing a page from Robert De Niro’s “Analyze This,” Kingsley’s character Frank Falenczyk has a problem. Well, actually he has two problems. The first is that he is a killer and the second is that he is an alcoholic.
The first problem is fine with his papa-bear gangster kingpin boss Roman Krzeminski (Philip Baker Hall) but the second, when it comes to rubbing out bad guys, is totally unacceptable. Frank is banished to San Francisco to smell the roses and stop drinking.
That kind of inside joke is the stuff that makes this movie. As Frank says, “They don’t have beer in San Francisco?” Good point. But Frank is not alone, he is being watched over by a trusted associate of Papa-bear, played in spades by Bill Pullman, who has orders to, you guessed it, call out for murder if Frank doesn’t toe the line.
So Frank is trapped into going to AA meetings to get his edge back.
When it comes to selling AA, there has probably never been a better film than this one (with the possible exception of Billy Wilder’s “Lost Weekend”). The alcoholics are a pretty together bunch, what with the one-liners and all. Plus they have Luke Wilson (“Blades of Glory”) as Tom, the roll taker with a heart of gold. The set-up of Frank spilling his guts about the assassin thing to Tom in front of the AA meeting has above-average humor potential and director John Dahl (“Rounders”) pulls it out.
Frank is working at his rehabilitation job as an undertaker and meets Laurel as he is preparing her father for that last slide on down. Leoni gets to act out as much one could given her character’s limited part in the story; as Frank divulges his past little by little. At the same time he is telling Tom the same story, and, amazingly enough, seeing the light at AA.
In spite of the hi-jinks the best part in the film goes to Dennis Farina playing really bad-guy mobster Edward O'Leary. O’Leary has it in for Frank’s gangland family, who rules their last little piece of Buffalo with loving brass knuckles. Farina brings just the right mixture of Jack Nicholson’s homicidal sneer and a Don Rickles’ getting no respect. You want to see him rubbed out, but not rubbed out in a really nasty way.
He has a couple of really messed up punk kids working for him who we really want to see get it, too---the perfect counterparts to Papa-bear’s milque-toast junior-gangster son.
This is a thoroughly fun film to watch for adults and mature teenagers. The gangster stuff is down-played and the real meat of the film lies in Frank Falenczyk finding himself and bringing bitter and remote Laurel Pearson out of her shell.
Dennis Farina should have been in more scenes.
As usual, Kingsley is great to watch from beginning to end, even if he never has to break a sweat to do his job.
You Kill Me
USA release, June 22, 2007. MPAA: Rated R for language and some violence.
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