John Dahl

Capsule reviews of John Dahl's films after the jump...

KILL ME AGAIN (1989)
** (Worth seeing)

Dahl co-scripted this genre debut and directed without an ounce of pretension. The last time Val Kilmer engendered empathy. After TOP SECRET!, REAL GENIUS, and this film (Dahl's debut) who would have thought that he would, in the future, only make an impression in stunt-performances (THE DOORS, ISLAND OF DR. MOREAU, THE SALTON SEA) or embodying the withdrawn and perversely professional (TOMBSTONE, HEAT, SPARTAN). Kilmer shares the screen with an excellent Michael Madsen.

RED ROCK WEST (1992)
*** (A must-see)

A paragon of genre filmmaking that has aged well. The previous may be a thoroughly redundant sentence. The only things that make one nostalgic watching this film are Nicolas Cage's effective performance and the presence of the late JT Walsh.

THE LAST SEDUCTION (1994)
** (Worth seeing)

Linda Fiorentino's performance is justly praised but for too much of the film she runs roughshod over poor Peter Berg. The lasting impression is of Fiorentino matched against Bill Pullman's desperate, resourceful, and crooked doctor. Pullman's overmatched, too, but the deck's not so stacked against his character as it is against Berg's.

UNFORGETTABLE (1996)
** (Worth seeing)

Time has further helped recognize that the relative response to THE LAST SEDUCTION and this film were completely out of whack. The former wasn't nearly as good as common consensus would have you believe and there's nothing fundamentally wrong with this film if you're willing to give Dahl the freedom to inject a little science-fiction into his genre sketchbook. Ray Liotta is excellent and Dahl continues to give myriad supporting actors room to breathe.

ROUNDERS (1998)
* (Has redeeming facet)

Edwards Norton and Matt Damon do good work but to no real purpose for a film that started the slow burn of the poker fad, and, much more briefly made a vogue of screenwriters David Levein and Brian Koppleman's shallow, hand-me-down contemporary crime scenarios. In no way is this recognizably a film by John Dahl. Miramax produced so perhaps it truly is not.

JOY RIDE (2001)
*** (A must-see)

This is a genuinely excellent film. It works as a thriller, a car chase film, and a rare example of effective satire of middle-class entitlement. Pranksters Steve Zahn and Paul Walker discover that their actions have consequences. Not that those consequences are proportionate to the gravity of the mugging they engineer. The terribly damaging assumption that consequences should not be expected (or how they manifest themselves can be predicted) resonates more powerfully as this decade ends than it did at its dawn.

The DVD is especially recommended as it thoroughly and engagingly documents how the film was made.

THE GREAT RAID (2005)
Unseen

YOU KILL ME (2007)
** (Worth seeing)

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