Saturday, December 22, 2007

Coldblooded

Coldblooded; black comedy, USA, 1995; D: Wallace Wolodarsky, S: Jason Priestley, Peter Riegert, Kimberly Williams, Robert Loggia, Janeane Garofalo, Jay Kogen, Josh Charles, Doris Grau, Michael J. Fox

Cosmo is a secluded 24-year old lad who lives in the basement of a retirement home, noting the bets of people through the telephone. One day the gangster Gordon promotes him to a killer and partner of 'veteran' Steve. Cosmo hesitates is killing Lance who owes a lot of money, but that way he gets a better salary. On the Yoga class he meets Jasmin who is bothered by her aggressive boyfriend Randy. Jasmin breaks up with him and starts a relationship with Cosmo. To him that's unusual because the only contact he ever had with women was with the prostitute Honey. In order to break up with his job and live like a normal person, he kills Steve and Gordon.

The author of this black comedy is Wallace Wolodarsky, one of the regular "Simpson's" writers, but here he seems to have no sense of humor at all. Namely, despite the fact that "Coldblooded" is an independent film, a majority of misadventures in which the interesting protagonist Cosmo falls into are bloodlessly banal. In the exposition the mobster Gordon congratulates Cosmo because he was promoted into a hitman, but he just replies with: "No, thanks" having second thoughts for obvious reasons. The first encounter with his first victim is convulsively funny - "Allow me to break your nose.", says Cosmo and starts a conversation with him: "So you're the guy on the telephone bets". I imagined you with a moustache." says the victim, which is suppose to be a 'quirky' shift between the normal and the abnormal, but it just seems out of place. The best episode is the one including some guy played by Michael J. Fox who is asked from Cosmo for a love advice before he shoots him. In a small, rather inessential role Janeane Garofalo plays the prostitute Honey, yet her relationship with Cosmo is very underused. It's a mater of a solid film, but "Grosse Pointe Blank" is a much better contribution to the theme.

Grade:+

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