Play Dead

I was very surprised at how good this film was. First of all, anything with Jake Busey deserves to be watched. Anytime he was on screen I laughed out loud. Chris Klein was very funny as usual, and the plot was original. But the very best part of this film was the character Ledge, played by Fred Durst. That man can act... and Ledge is possibly one of the quirkiest characters I've seen in a film. Great stuff! I laughed, I cried.... well, I didn't cry at all, but I did laugh. I will be surprised if this movie doesn't become a cult classic, in the vein of Donnie Darko, or Boondock Saints. Any movie that makes violence as funny as this movie gets an A in my book.

If you're like me, the mix of Chris Klein, Jake Busey, and Fred Durst doesn't exactly spell success. As such, I popped this movie in with few expectations. What I got was a bit of a pleasant surprise, but not much of one. That being said, after I saw the laugh-out-loud awful performance of Chris Klein in Street Fighter: The Legend Of Chun Li, I had pretty much counted him out for good. So I suppose it's always good to see someone get back up and at least dust themselves off.

The premise of the film is pretty basic. A washed up TV actor (Klein) falls on a streak of bad (really bad) luck and gets stranded in a small town in the middle of nowhere. Problem is that the town is basically run by a small group of guys running drugs, so it's up to Klein and his old TV show buddies to save the day. That's all fine and good, but it's basically the same plot from Three Amigos and, let's face it, there's little chance anyone will ever do a movie similar to that and do it better. But, with that in mind, it's not too bad. Fred Durst does a good job as the (perhaps appropriately cast) idiot and everyone seems like a total doofus with the exception of Klein and the main antagonist. There really isn't a whole lot of action here so I'm not sure why that's listed as the primary genre, and the comedy isn't so much laugh-out-loud as it is the kind that will give you a chuckle and make you say "What the...?".

All in all it's not bad...I certainly don't think it deserves it's current 2.9 rating. It's not great but you've seen far worse. But then again that's just me. I'd say it's not a bad way to waste an hour and a half.

I like watching genre movies made by low budget filmmakers, because not only do they often try harder to deliver the goods so their films will stand out from the crowd, you can often find a love of filmmaking absent from many big budget Hollywood films. But "Play Dead" reminded me that there are a lot of BAD movies made by low budget filmmakers. The script is bewildering - it often plays like each scene was written by one person part of a large committee, with each subsequent filmmaker often ignoring what was written before in order to do their own thing. There's a lot in this movie that makes no sense. The movie suffers in other aspects as well, ranging from underwhelming acting to incompetent cinematography. Obviously made on the real cheap, you have to wonder how director / co-writer / producer Jason Wiles managed to convince the semi-famous cast to appear in this shabby production. The only explanation I can think of is blackmail.

In a movie that follows a struggling actor, played, evidently, by a struggling actor, this does no favours for Chris Klein. He struggles to bring anything memorable to the role and meanders on through the shallow script managing to display, what could only be described as, a bland leading man. The story exists, but that is all, and fails to show any basic start, middle and end and the viewer is left shrugging his shoulders feeling as though nothing in the past hour and three quarters has really happened.

One bright light in the midst of this is Fred Durst, who manages to stand out above his seemingly averagely talented co-stars and does a semi-decent job of bringing the backward character of Legde to life. Whether Fred can re-create this when working with a higher calibre of cast remains to be seen but I'l be watching out for him in future.

Dumb is as dumb does, in this thoroughly uninteresting, supposed black comedy. Essentially what starts out as Chris Klein trying to maintain a low profile, eventually morphs into an uninspired version of "The Three Amigos", only without any laughs. In order for black comedy to work, it must be outrageous, which "Play Dead" is not. In order for black comedy to work, it cannot be mean spirited, which "Play Dead" is. What "Play Dead" really is, is a town full of nut jobs. Fred Dunst does however do a pretty fair imitation of Billy Bob Thornton's character from "A Simple Plan", while Jake Busey does a pretty fair imitation of, well, Jake Busey. - MERK