`Things to Do in Denver' explores small-time gangsters
When writer Scott Rosenberg's father died of cancer, he dealt with it by writing about facing a terminal disease and living in fear of hearing a death knell. Rather than make a movie about the medical drama of the week, Rosenberg explores the theme metaphorically in Things to Do in Denver When You're Dead.
Jimmy the Saint (Andy Garcia) is a small-time front man for a gangster; he has retired into a business helping the terminally ill to give advice from beyond the grave by recording video messages before their deaths. But Jimmy's life will change dramatically over the next 48 hours: Two tidal waves arrive to crush the comfortable routineof his life. Jimmy falls in love with Dagney (Gabrielle Anwar), and he's made an "offer he can't refuse" by the Man with the Plan (Christopher Walken).
Deciding to share the wealth, he calls in the old gang of misfits he worked with: Pieces Polymeros (Christopher Lloyd), a sleaze suffering from a debilitating disease and reduced to working as a projectionist at a porno theater; Critical Bill (Treat Williams), a strangely naive psychotic who works in a mortuary; Franchise (William Forsythe), Jimmy's right-hand man, who runs a trailer park and raises a family; and Easy Wind (Bill Nunn), who reeks of pesticide from working at Ike's Pest Control.
But what starts as one last job before a return to the straight and narrow ends up going awry, and the gang finds itselfs being tracked down by the world's best assassin, played by Steve Buscemi.
The film is an intense black comedy whose strength lies in its performances. Andy Garcia turns in what is possibly the finest performance in his Oscar-nominated career. His transformation from a suave gentleman to a man who has no choice but savage violence is remarkable; the character is so vividly complex that he leaves you wondering whether he deserves the title "the Saint" more when he is helping an old lady or stabbing a young man. But regardless of his sainthood, Jimmy is unquestionably the charismatic center of the group.
There is something pathetic about gangsters in a city like Denver, and Jimmy's band of misfits are certainly not an exception to the rule.
The crew we are introduced to in Denver, with their prison jargon, naiveté and hopeless looks in their eyes, grows on you during the film.
Christopher Walken dominates his scenes as the Man, a paraplegic who controls the lives of others even as he is powerless to control his own body, and whose hopes are entirely wrapped up in his half-witted pedophile son (played in yet another of the film's strong performances by Michael Nicolosi).
It is a movie about hope among people who have no hope, and it is an exceptionally strong film. Rosenberg's talent for the details of people's lives is also evident in beautiful girls , the second film he has written, but it is this first film that uses talent for a greater purpose.
This movie touched me even more than the critically acclaimed Leaving Las Vegas did because the comedy exterior to the individuals serves to highlight the pathos within the life of a man who falls in love and faces death in the same week, a man who condemns his friends to death out of his generosity.
What choices do you make when you have no choices? Each of the film's characters answers the question in his own way. One choice you should make is to see the subtly disturbing and richly ironic Things to Do in Denver When You're Dead .
This item appeared in the Arts & Entertainment section of the February 23, 1996 issue.
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