Jim Jarmusch is Steven Soderbergh with worse publicity. Soderbergh and Jarmusch got big around the same time. However, while Soderbergh got big in the US with the Ocean’s movies and multiple Oscar nominations, Jarmusch won a couple Cannes Prizes and has lived in relative obscurity as a filmmaker and artist, allowed to develop his own style of filmmaking at his own pace. The Dead Don’t Die is Jarmusch’s take on the zombie movie, which doesn’t seem like a good pairing and by the end…I’m still not sure it’s a good pairing, but at least I got my Jarmusch fix.
The beats will seem familiar. Chief Cliff Robertson (Bill Murray) and his partner Ronnie Peterson (Adam Driver) go to investigate a local dispute between Hermit Bob (Tom Waits) and Farmer Frank Miller (Steve Buscemi), when they both start to notice small strange things going on. Pretty soon, all of these residents of Centerville, including Hank Thompson (Danny Glover) and Bobby Wiggins (Caleb Landry Jones), realize with relaxed horror, that all the dead are rising. Why would I choose to use the weird phrase “relaxed horror?” Well, it is a Jim Jarmusch film…
And because it’s a Jarmusch film, there’s a lethargic attitude toward everything going on, as if time simply does not exist. Sometimes, that attitude can add a layer of depth to a character or movie (like Adam Driver in Jarmusch’s last movie Paterson). In The Dead Don’t Die, that malaise deflates any sense of urgency the story has to complete itself, and really doesn’t add a whole lot to character development. After the first zombie killing, for example, the characters spend what feels like 30 minutes asking each other what they think after they repeat the same dialogue about who the murderer may be. The lone inspiring idea Jarmusch has I won’t spoil, but it at least gives the movie a sense it knows what its doing. This unwillingness to push the plot forward leaves the movie rudderless in a bad way, making you only care about the scene in front of you, which varies in quality scene to scene. There’s also a shocking amount of political commentary here, which also varies in effect scene to scene.
So with plot out of the way, Jarmusch gives time to let his characters breathe and hopefully have the audience connect with his oddballs. Here, only a few of the characters are worth following around, and that is most of the time because of the actor, not Jarmusch himself. There are a couple exceptions: Swinton and Driver for example, Jarmusch vets who shine in every scene they’re in. Watching Driver say “Oh Yuck” when he sees a brutal zombie death made me laugh every time, and Tilda Swinton adds another bonkers character to her “strange character” resume who’s payoff is the movie’s highlight. But with the strong supporting cast, including Chloe Sevigny, Carol Kane, Glover, Jones, and even Selena Gomez and the Rza, I wish Jim Jarmusch had gone full Pulp Fiction Tarantino and given every character some sort of angle, instead of just his actor acolytes.
Jim Jarmusch movies are never bad; they’re more like misfires. The Dead Don’t Die is a misfire. Jarmusch and this batch of undead don’t quite mix right. Which is strange, because he’s made the undead work before. Lesson learned here Jim: get a nice little 3 way action between Tom Hiddleston, Swinton, and Adam Driver for your next movie. They get you, and bring out the best in you.