'The Dead Don't Die' A Review

The Dead Don't Die is a zombie comedy written and directed by Jim Jarmusch. The film opens on two Centerville officers Cliff(Bill Murray) and Ronnie(Adam Driver) confronting Hermit Bob(Tom Waits) about a chicken stealing compliant. The story sedately flows between the police, a group of young adults traveling through the town, a gas station attendant, a diner, a racist farmer, and a mortician all while zombies very slowly begin to range and kill.

Like most Jarmusch films the cast is stacked with talent, some Jarmusch die hards like Murray, RZA, and Tilda Swinton and newer additions to his ensemble like Adam Driver and Rosie Perez(as the defacto news anchor-narrator cheekily named as Posie Juarez). But Swinton is really the only one given much of a character which to play, albeit a totally bizarre and perhaps non-nonsensical one, at least she's having fun and doing something. The portrayal of the rest of the cast is relatively flat and unresponsive, presumably by intent, and perhaps this is in an attempt at telling something more allegorical than narrative but either way it isn't particularly effective.

The camera work is beautifully fluid, the soundtrack resonant and at times playful, the costumes pitch perfect. The issue, if there is one, is the message and it's deriving metaphor. Zombies and specifically zombie comedies are more than decade past their peek popularity so it's an odd one to use given how saturated the pop culture landscape has been. The message itself, presumably about the current state of the US, both socially and politically, about apathy and inaction in the face of crisis and impending doom, is, kind of on the nose? A bit too obvious with no real offer of hope or inspiration and as such doesn't particularly offer much either as a story or as a metaphor.

Periodically funny, pleasantly performed, impeccable production, but ultimately one of Jarmusch's more muddled offerings, more inline with the odd ultimately boring Limits Of Control rather than his two more recent inspired works Paterson and Only Lovers Left Alive.

Rent It.