Dead Man
[DVD Info]

"Dead Man" is a black and white artsy western about a man named William Blake (Johnny Depp) who is from Cleveland. He gets a letter that indicates that he has been hired for a job in Machine (located somewhere in the old West) so he takes a train there. As he gets closer and closer to this town the scenery becomes more and more sparse. When he arrives it's a pretty grim sight but he makes his way to his new job. When he gets there they tell him his letter was postmarked two months ago so...he's a month late...they've already hired someone. Blake demands to see the owner (seeing as he spent all his money just to get there) John Dickenson (Robert Mitchum) and comes face to face with the barrel of a rifle.

So off he wanders to figure out what to do. He goes to the bar to spend his last pennies on alcohol. There he meets a woman who makes flowers out of paper. She takes him home and they have some sex. Suddenly, a man opens the door. It's the girl's ex-fiancé (who just happens to be John Dickenson's son). The girl eggs him on and he shoots her (while she was trying to protect Blake) and the bullet goes through her and into him and Blake in turn shoots Dickenson's son in the neck. Bam! He's now a wanted man!

Blake is rescued by an Indian named Nobody (Gary Farmer) who mistakes him for the poet William Blake and speaks a lot of "Indian malarkey" and accompanies Blake through most of the movie.

Since Blake is wanted he now has 3 men after him the legendary Cole Wilson (Lance Henriksen) who killed and ate his own parents, Conway Twill (Michael Wincott) a non-stop talker who sleeps with a teddy bear, and Johnny "the kid" Pickett (Eugene Byrd) a 14 year old who supposedly killed 14 men. The movie is about these men who are hunting Blake down, and Blake and Nobody traveling to "the place in which he came from." Throughout the movie Blake is dying slowly as he comes closer to death the deeper in hell he appears to be in.

"Aren't you glad that darkness comes slowly? What if it came suddenly...like blowing out a candle. One minute it's light then BAM it's dark. Heh, heh, that'd scare the bejezzus out of me." ~Conway Twill

I wish there was more of a soundtrack. They pretty much played two different guitar riffs (played by Neil Diamond). It got a little annoying.

The fact that there was no talking for the first 10 minutes of the film didn't exactly reel me in right away ^^;

The movie starts out really slow and boring, but give it a chance because it gets better. There were two characters that spouted the best lines, Nobody and Conway Twill (who dies! No! He was the best character!). I was also amused by the cameos! Crispin Glover (who was the engineer who talks to Depp on the train about how where he's going is hell on earth), Iggy Pop (who wears a dress and talks about Jesus...and the insinuates that he's the bitch of the group of other men...if you know what I mean) and Billy Bob Thorton (who is also part of that group and fights with his companion on who gets to rape Depp...hehe). Because of this, the jury gives this flick:

[BACK]