Things to Do in Denver When You're Dead

1995 "Protect. Love. Honor. Avenge."
6.7| 1h56m| R| en| More Info
Released: 01 December 1995 Released
Producted By: Miramax
Country: United States of America
Budget: 0
Revenue: 0
Official Website:
Info

Five different criminals face imminent death after botching a job quite badly.

Genre

Drama, Crime

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Director

Gary Fleder

Production Companies

Miramax

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Things to Do in Denver When You're Dead Audience Reviews

Ceticultsot Beautiful, moving film.
Helllins It is both painfully honest and laugh-out-loud funny at the same time.
Roy Hart If you're interested in the topic at hand, you should just watch it and judge yourself because the reviews have gone very biased by people that didn't even watch it and just hate (or love) the creator. I liked it, it was well written, narrated, and directed and it was about a topic that interests me.
Staci Frederick Blistering performances.
jimbo-53-186511 Jimmy 'The Saint' Tosnia (Andy Garcia) runs an afterlife advice business which is a service that allows his 'terminally ill' clients the opportunity to leave a recorded message (via video) to their loved ones after they have passed away. With his business currently in a bit of slump, Jimmy is presented with an opportunity to make some easy money from criminal overlord Christopher Walken (who is simply credited as The Man With The Plan). Walken offers Jimmy $50,000 dollars simply to rough up a man who is marrying his son's ex-girlfriend to try to stop him from marrying her. Due to some heavy debts, Jimmy agrees to do the job, but requests help from some of his criminal cronies; Pieces (Lloyd), Franchise (Forsythe), Easy Wind (Nunn) and Critical Bill (Williams). However, the job doesn't go to plan and as a result of their failure Walken hires an assassin to track down and kill the 5 men.The first half of this film isn't actually too bad - yes it's a little slow to get moving, but it does seem to present itself as a potentially interesting and thrilling story. The problem with this film is that the first aspect of the story (the job) is built up rather admirably only then to come to an end rather abruptly. This in itself wouldn't be a problem if the film had the same flow about it after 'the job' has been completed, but the truth is that it doesn't I'm afraid....Once the job is completed the film generally splits off in 3 different directions; Tosnia and his relationship with Dagney (Gabrielle Anwar), Tosnia and Lucinda (Fairuza Balk) and the assassin hunting Tosnia and his team down. Aside from making the second half feel unfocused, none of these elements are really strong enough on their own to make me care about what's going on? Tosnia's relationship with Dagney was uninteresting and took up far too much screen time. The story arc involving Lucinda was half-cooked and left unfulfilled - it also didn't seem to add much to the story. Finally the story arc involving the assassin pursuing Tosnia's gang wasn't given nearly as much screen time as it should have been given. As mentioned too much time was spent on lousy and uninteresting sub plots. I also felt that there was too much focus on Tosnia and his relationship and not enough time was given to his criminal gang meaning that character development was practically non-existent. As a result of this, the film lacked intensity and more importantly there was a noticeable absence of thrills on offer as well.Anyone who has seen any of Tarantino's films will no doubt notice some similarities between the feel of this film and the feel of Tarantino's films, but that's basically all TTDIDWYD manages to achieve. When watching this film you get the violence and profanity of your average Tarantino film, but what you don't get is good dialogue and strong storytelling. Essentially then what you're left with is basically a Tarantino film but with all the good bits removed.TTDIDWYD is a very poor film and is probably one of the biggest wastes of acting talents that I've seen. I've given it a 3 out of 10 but that's only as acknowledgement to the many talented actors that were involved in this shambles.
skeptic skeptical Don't ask me why, but I watched this movie twice. Maybe because it was set in Denver, where I grew up. The setting of this story seemed to be a very different place from the city of Denver familiar to me. Or perhaps I watched this production a second time simply to verify that this was not a great film. Fait accompli.There was some good acting in this production, no doubt, but the characters were almost all caricatures. And then there's the story itself. The Andy Garcia character has managed to extricate himself from the world of the mob and "go civilian". But then his old boss has him chased down to do one final "action"—not a "work", but an "action". He is supposed to not kill but frighten away the lover of the boss's son's former girlfriend so that the son (who has become a pederast--what?) can be reunited with the love of his life. Who does the Andy Garcia character call on to help him carry out the "action"? A team of misfit losers, all of whom have done time in prison and are therefore of questionable competence. Predictably, the incompetent team members prove incompetent here as well, and end up killing not only the guy whom they are supposed to scare, but also his girlfriend. The boss, who is a paralyzed, ghoulish Christopher Walken character, decides to "buckwheat" the lot of them, which we are told means make them suffer before they die. However, he gives the Andy Garcia character the opportunity just to leave town, which he ends up not doing because he's too busy trying to save all of the others.There is so much detail to this densely embellished story, but none of it really adds up to anything. I feel as though the screenwriter was trying to jam all of his interesting ideas into a single script. Sometimes less is more, and this story could have benefited from the removal of some of the colorful but ultimately irrelevant "script- stuff", for lack of a better expression. Did the son of the boss really have to be a pederast? Did the Vietnam Vet really have to use corpses as his punching bag? It was all too much. Like eating a dozen donuts and a bag of potato chips and a submarine sandwich and a candy bar, and maybe washing it all down with a couple of beers.Steve Buscemi makes a short appearance (maybe that's why I gave this a second chance?), and there is a sort of happy ending when the druggy- prostitute pregnant survivor of the story moves to Florida to raise her child and become a masseuse. Honestly, I don't even know what is worth reporting here. It would take way too many words! So let me just end by avowing that I definitely will not give this high-calorie, low nutrient production a third try.
raguel-zophiel As a former probation and parole officer, the character portrayals of the various types of 'criminals' developed in this movie is excellent. From 'slicks' to 'slobs' they are portrayed realistically, and even sympathetically. It's a tragic story of older, reformed criminals gone straight at various jobs, from Jimmy the Saint's (Andy Garcia) video business, to 'Pieces' (Christopher Lloyd) porn movie projectionist in an adult movie theater, to Franchise (William Forsythe) managing a mobile home park, to Critical Bill (Treat Williams) as an undertaker's apprentice with not quite a full deck, to Easy Wind (Bill Nunn) whose occupation in the movie I don't recall or was never disclosed. A mob boss, "The Man"/"The Head" played by Christopher Walken at his most sinister and threatening, buys up Jimmy the Saint's note for a debt and extorts him into doing 'an action' on a man who has stolen the affections of the fiancée' of the mob boss's son. Everything goes wrong from there on in, but I don't want to give it away. One of the most underrated movies there ever was and one sure to bring even the toughest guys to 'get misty'.
billcr12 Jimmy the saint(Andy Garcia) is a former gangster trying to go straight with an "afterlife" business where he videotapes the dying for the surviving relatives and friends. He gets lured back into the crime world for one last job by. Theman with the plan(Christopher Walken). Jimmy recruits Critical Bill(Treat Williams), in his darkest role, and Christopher Lloyd as Pieces. Jimmy and his crew set up an a abduction dressed as police officers and it all goes horribly wrong. The violence is intense, but the black humor is in the style of Quentin Tarantino, crisp and hilarious.Steve Buscemi shows up later on as a hit man, and he has never been better. I won't give away any more of the story but will just say that it is one of the best crime capers I've ever see..