Stephen C. Sepher, writer/director and actor in his own film, based his screenplay on the original 1949 D.O.A. starring Edmund O'brien-about a man who's been intentionally poisoned and only has a day to uncover who's responsible for his murder. Sepher wrote the original script for Heist (2015) starring Robert De Niro, but significant portions of it were changed by a subsequent writer-here, however, the script is all his so he'll now have to swim or sink in the face of honest criticism.
The story begins with Sepher's protagonist, one Sam Collins (Billy Flynn), a pharmaceutical salesman who pulls over on a highway outside of New Orleans, in obvious great distress. He's taken to the hospital by a state trooper where he's informed that he's been poisoned with some kind of botulism which has no cure. We then flashback to 12 hours earlier when Collins has been invited to a party thrown by the sleazy Dr. Alexander, who Collins has been trying to obtain a contract with involving his company's newly minted vaccines.
The action turns up a notch when Alexander turns up dead and Collins is suddenly the prime suspect. The good news is that Sepher has done a number of things right including filming in the visually impressive Bayou country, introducing an ensemble cast of colorful characters (the most successful being a psychopathic sheriff's deputy played by a harrowing Tyson Sullivan), utilizing some comedy to flesh out his investigative detectives (the boss continually busts his subordinate's chops over his Armenian heritage) and keeping the pace frenetic which leads to the uncovering of the murderer's identity (which is not completely apparent despite the relatively small number of suspects).
Nonetheless, Sepher's script is not as clever as it could have been. It was explained at a recent Q&A that the Italians have some roots in the New Orleans area which still (I don't think) is enough to introduce a few stock Mafia types to spruce up the action. Here a mafia tough (Anthony Sinopoli) becomes irate over Dr. Alexander's apparent misplacement of his $2 million investment; he's aided by two quirky hit men (played by Lillo Brancato and Sepher himself), who provide some familiar Sopranos-like comic relief.
The plot becomes more convoluted with the introduction of too many female prostitute characters to keep track of. One of them brings Sam to a voodoo priestess who makes an unsuccessful to cure him using an herbal liquid concoction. Both the priestess and the prostitute (the one with the heart of gold helping Sam), meet the same fate at the hands of the psycho sheriff's deputy. A few others get bumped off including a transvestite and another prostitute (whose name I can't recall) who has been having kinky sex with Dr. Alexander's insurance man, Hans Dunkel (an effective Chris Mulkey).
I won't reveal who's responsible for Sam's poisoning and all the carnage, but to suffice it to say Sepher's explanation as to who double-crossed Alexander and the Mafia guy and why, is not all that clever. Furthermore not much is done with the Collins character for that matter either, as we find out little about his backstory (he's mainly seen being chased and collapsing all over the place due to the poison he's ingested earlier).
A further opportunity is lost when Sepher fails to criticize the pharmaceutical industry for its many excesses, particularly in regards to the safety and efficacy of vaccines. Good old Hans questions Sam at the beginning of the narrative about the potential dangers of vaccines but Sepher later leaves us with the Mafia boss's false admonition: "Vaccines don't kill people, people do." Tell that to mothers who receive pennies to the dollar in government created "vaccine courts," following fatal accidents involving their helpless children, forced to undergo vaccine shots infused with a myriad of toxic substances.
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