Showing up for a weekend theatrical rollout before getting dropped in the VOD wasteland, “Just Play Dead” is a sunny neo-noir which no one, from the people on-screen to the folks behind the camera, appears all that excited to be a part of.
The only one who seems to be having a good time is star/executive producer Samuel L. Jackson, rocking a graying ponytail and a continually open shirt, as Nero Wolfe, the picture’s murderous, island-based Big Bad. Wolfe is on the verge of being indicted for embezzling funds he and his wife Nora (Eva Green, sullen and snarling) have been living off. He hatches a plan where he stages his murder, so he and his wife can split the $30 million insurance money. It’s a scheme his ol’ lady, who’s already been plotting to rid herself of the devious sumabitch, happily accepts.
As expected, this all leads to a steady, sludgy stream of double- and triple-crossing that I’m sure will make sense to somebody. Nora ropes in not one, but two lovestruck schnooks—a beach-bum surfer (Jason Fernandez) and a hotheaded detective (Eoin Macken)—into this twisted chess game between the insanely toxic couple. (Jackson and Green do give off bitchy Liz-and-Dick energy, throwing some flamboyantly passive-aggressive jabs at each other in between the scheming.) But even with double the dopes falling for Green’s tantalizing femme fatale shtick, “Just Play Dead” is tiresome, derivative quasi-pulp.
This uninspired, somewhat tongue-in-cheek mashup of James M. Cain and Carl Hiaasen is the work of veteran movie/TV writer Dan Gordon, based on his 1997 novel. And it seems “Goldeneye”/“Casino Royale” helmer Martin Campbell (who replaced “Kiss the Girls” director Gary Fleder) decided to shoot it like a novel as well, with its back-and-forth time jumps, immense exposition dumps, and sequences that sounded better on paper.
“Dead” is one of those rare instances where both the cast and the characters they play are wildly uninteresting. The supporting players are a mixture of international folk with limited range (including Spain’s Maria Pedraza and Germany’s Nikki Ansari-Cox as wise female cops) who seem to get more screen time than the actual stars.
Even though there is modern-day technology here and there, “Just Play Dead” feels like it’s stuck in the ‘90s, from its chintzy opening credits to its myriad prison-rape jokes. (While watching this, I kept getting reminded of all those shoddy, tawdry TV movies HBO used to drop before the channel’s “Barbarians at the Gate”/“And the Band Played On” era.) Campbell was more preoccupied with getting the picturesque feel of the Canary Islands setting (complete with incessant samba music cues) than directing a movie where anybody involved acted like they gave a damn.
For all the sweaty, screwball skeeviness that goes on, “Just Play Dead” is dull, baffling, and, for fans of classic erotic noirs like “Double Indemnity” and “Body Heat,” infuriating as hell. At least it looks like Jackson had some fun both enjoying and chewing the scenery whenever he could. Too bad he’s the only one.
