Writer-director Jim Jarmusch (Broken Flowers, Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai) has amassed the most impressive, offbeat and envelope-pushing cinematic work over the years. His latest continues that streak and ventures into a genre beloved by hundreds of millions—zombies!
The Dead Don’t Die stars Adam Driver (Star Wars: Rise of Skywalker) and Bill Murray as small town cops patrolling the streets of their little hamlet when literally, all hell breaks loose. Well, actually it occurs quite gradually—which is a fantastic marvel to witness. The viewer knows, not too long before Chief Cliff Robertson (Murray) and Officer Ronnie Peterson (Driver). The zombies are slow to emerge, but they do make their presence known and their hunger for human flesh is insatiable. It’s only when our dynamic duo is called to a local dinner where it hits Ronnie as he declares that what we’re looking at here are zombies, aka ghouls.
What is so terrific about this film is that it is a simultaneously subtle and rich film that finds everything handled by its players as so matter of fact. Carol Kane, for example, who plays Mallory O’Brien, is in lockup at the station. She’s dead, they just don’t have anywhere else to put here for the moment. As she arises in her zombie-rific self chanting “Chardonnay… Chardonnay!”, Cliff, Ronnie and Officer Mindy Morrison (Chloë Sevigny) react like, “would you look at that,” before Ronnie takes an ax to her repeatedly because you know, “you gotta kill the head.”
In this world that the writer-director has crafted, it seems that there has been some deep earth core digging done and it has changed our axis and how the planet rotates. The moon has a purple-ish hue, the daylight is lasting well into the evening when it should be dark and of course, there are those pesky zombies who emerge from their graves and start doing what they are born to do! Brains!
In a role that is utterly delightful to watch unfurl before our eyes is Tilda Swinton as the funeral director Zelda Winston. She, as we learn, is rather good with a samurai sword—when she’s not applying colorfully divine makeup to her dead charges before being put in their caskets. That skill ought to come into play quite nicely, what with zombies running loose on the townsfolk in this rural landscape. The scene where two of her recently made-up dead folks arise, that alone is worth the price of admission. Swinton was born to play this role and has been a favorite of Jarmusch for some time (Only Lovers Left Alive). She’s in the film plenty and does help our police officers immensely when it comes to ridding their town of these pesky undead folks. That being said, I could have watched a movie that merely featured her character alone battling the zombie infestation that only seems to be getting worse as the clock ticks by.
Driver dazzles with his droll delivery that alone has us laughing at so many of his lines. Every single time he says, “This is not going to end well,” (which he does often), it becomes more and more hilarious as the film progresses. Of course, he’s right … and we know it. He and Murray have a comedic chemistry that is below the surface and never outright. It’s a lesson in comic control that finds two actors delivering laughs while simultaneously never getting too far away from their character’s centers. It’s pure Jarmusch and one can see why the writer-director put many of his former co-stars to work in this most original of movies. Of course, Murray shined in Broken Flowers and Driver was in Paterson. The shorthand between director and actors is fluid on a Jarmusch set and if there was a movie that called for it, it is The Dead Don’t Die.
Murray, meanwhile, continues his career evolution that began on SNL and has progressed to the point where I think it’s safe to call him a national treasure. What he does with Cliff is create a character that we don’t get to know all that well. Yet, we know who he is … someone who he says was supposed to retire two years ago but didn’t. We never find out why, and it doesn’t matter. But we do know something. That “should have retired” trope is coming at Murray like a freight train and we cannot wait to see how it all goes down.
The supporting cast is bloody brilliant, and its trailer ads were correct, this is the greatest zombie movie cast of all time. Not only Murray, Sevigny, Driver and Swinton excel in every sense of the word, but so too does Selena Gomez as a member of a trio of tourists who are simply stopping in this town for the night. Tom Waits’ Hermit Bob had to be a role crafted with the iconic musician in mind. What he does with it is take it beyond stereotype and give it a full three-dimensional feel. Steve Buscemi is Farmer Frank Miller and from the moment we meet him (with his essentially “Make America White Again” red hat), we know this character. In Buscemi’s hands, it’s the stuff of genius. RZA, Iggy Pop, Rosie Perez and Danny Glover all shine and make this ensemble truly electric.
Jarmusch has given us what is his most approachable movie. That could be due to the zombie aspect as that subgenre of horror has become so huge in the years following the debut of The Walking Dead. But make no mistake, this is still firmly a classic Jim Jarmusch movie, from the cast’s varied, layered and rich dialogue, to the characters he creates and the palette he utilizes to paint this world that—although ripe with zombies killing people—is easily one place that is utterly enjoyable to visit for us movie goers.
Lastly, the soundtrack is divine and since seeing The Dead Don’t Die, I have been looking everywhere for the title song. It is played in the film and in a meta moment becomes a true theme song as there has ever been one. The lyrics are ripe, spot-on and if you listen closely, as Sturgill Simpson sings, the story plays out over the catchy tune. They are even selling a CD single of Simpson’s “hit” song in the local convenience store—which Gomez’s character buys a copy of and leaves us wondering where we can get the track too! I guess we could just go and see The Dead Don’t Die again.
Grade: A