Rent Dead Man (1995)

Well I liked it! - Dead Man review by PM

It is a quiet film, a bit irritating, even harrowing in places, but it is also monumentally symbolic in a way that few other movies manage to attain. I doubt it would be so worth watching without Johnny Depp's enigmatic performance, but for me it is Gary Farmer who is the real star of the show. And it's a movie that is stuffed full of extraordinary larger than life characters. In many ways it's a series of portraits that intertwine with each other, and that may be why some people have found it too dull. Being more akin to a painting than an action movie.

Dead Loss - Dead Man review by CP Customer

With such a cast how could it go wrong?

Following a very thin plot ,each scene punctuated by an irritating use of fade-to-black. The dirge like sound track was in keeping ,but I think was another missed opportunity, as with the overall depressing depiction of the country at that point in its history.

Best part has to be the scene with Robert Mitchum.

Engrossing Western - Something Different yet Brilliant - Dead Man review by GI

A film of remarkable depth and originality. Independent filmmaker and director Jim Jarmusch has made some really interesting and unusual films and Dead Man is probably his finest work. It's a bizarre, surreal and engrossing story and an allegory for a journey to hell and back again. Set in the late 1800s and meek, mild mannered and slightly effeminate Bill Blake (Johnny Depp) uses up all his meagre savings to travel across America to take up a job as an accountant with a metalwork company owned by the maniacal Dickinson (Robert Mitchum - in his final film). On arrival Blake finds the position has been filled and he is left stranded. Spending the night with a prostitute he ends up killing Dickinson's son in self defence and, badly wounded, he flees into the wilderness. Pursued by three psychopathic bounty hunters Blake is helped by a strange Indian who calls himself Nobody (Gary Farmer). The journey becomes a spiritual one littered with dangerous and grotesque characters and with each encounter Blake finds violence is the easy way to continue his journey. This film reads as an anti-western, it's a really engrossing and clever movie and has a strange, dreamlike beauty to it. The support cast are exceptional and includes John Hurt, Lance Henricksen, Billy Bob Thornton, Iggy Pop, Jared Harris and Alfred Molina. Essentially an odyssey story, structured like a Greek mythological tale, full of mysticism and atmosphere. It's a film that will leave an impression I guarantee.