D.O.A.
You’re never more alive
than when you’re on the edge of death.
– Dennis Quaid, as Dexter Cornell.
How would you react if you were then told you’d been deliberately poisoned?
You’re still alive, the poison ingested into your system, working through you.
Your life slowly and painfully ebbs away, and you are fully aware of every moment of it.
In your last hours, you know you’ve been murdered.
What would you do?
How would you spend that remaining time?
Counting every second … minute … hour …
A remake that becomes a reimagining of the 1949 original.
In a nostalgic homage
to classic noir thrillers, this neo-noir update opens with a night scene, shot
in grainy black and white.
Dexter Cornell (Dennis
Quaid) walks through a torrential rainstorm.
His jacket is torn.
He looks
beaten.
The title acronym: D.O.A.
is short for Dead On Arrival.
That’s what Dexter is on the verge of
being, as he stumbles into a police station, and knocks over a Christmas tree when
he approaches the Desk Sergeant (William Johnson).
Dexter is visibly in pain,
as he tells the cop he’s there to report a murder.
“Who was murdered?” the Desk Sergeant asks.
Dexter raises his head, looks him in the eye, and declares cryptically: “I was!”
“Who was murdered?” the Desk Sergeant asks.
Dexter raises his head, looks him in the eye, and declares cryptically: “I was!”
In an interview room, Dexter
relays his story to Detectives Ulmer (Brion James), and Brockton (Jack Kehoe),
who record his statement onto video tape.
A neat switch on some movies where
flashback sequences are shown in black and white, or a hazy color filter.
The movie switches to color, as Dexter, now teaching his college class, writes the word COLOR on the chalkboard.
Dexter asks his class for references to the color green.
The movie switches to color, as Dexter, now teaching his college class, writes the word COLOR on the chalkboard.
Dexter asks his class for references to the color green.
Star student and aspiring novelist, Nicholas
Lang (Robert Knepper), offers the most intelligent answer with a quote from Othello,
by William Shakespeare:
Jealousy triggered by an extra-marital affair.
Jealousy of other people’s achievements.
Jealousy of status.
Passions and tempers are as hot
as the unseasonal sweltering heat.
Dexter Cornell is not
happy with his life.
He’s a chain-smoking, alcohol-guzzling, depressive.
His
marriage has failed and, despite his attempts at reconciliation, his estranged
wife, Gail (Jane Kaczmarek), has long since given up.
Whenever they talk, she pesters
him to sign the divorce papers.
His success as a novelist secured him the respected
position of college English Professor.
Afraid of failure, he simply stopped
writing and settled into teaching.
Dexter gave up on what was truly important
to him.
His lack of passion then affected all aspects of his life.
Dennis Quaid is convincing in the role.
Dennis Quaid is convincing in the role.
A cynical everyman.
Weighed down by life.
Looking ever
more disheveled, shaky, and sweaty.
His on-campus death, at first thought to be suicide, is
later discovered to be murder.
The caustic dialogue is wry and humorous, particularly in the
scene when the cops question Dexter in his ex-wife’s home.
Gail has been
murdered, and it is revealed that Dexter has been deliberately poisoned.
Brockton:
The cops refuse to believe he’s not the
culprit.
Dexter then sets out to solve the mystery himself.
The plot has effective
twists, turns, and red herrings along the way, as Dexter has dealings with Sydney
Fuller (Meg Ryan), an admiring student Dexter gets literally stuck on.
Mrs. Fitzwaring (Charlotte Rampling), a shadowy Black Widow, and Lang’s benefactor.
Bernard (Christopher Neame), Fitzwaring’s Chauffeur and violent right-hand man.
Cookie (Robin Johnson), Fitzwaring’s daughter.
Hal Petersham (Daniel Stern), Dexter’s friend and colleague.
Graham Corey (Jay Patterson), Dexter’s disgruntled colleague.
Annabel Jankel and Rocky
Morton’s previous experience with directing music videos is evident in the
nightclub scene, where Dexter and Sydney get drunk at the bar, downing endless Martinis,
and the on-stage Rock band, Timbuk 3 (1983-1995), sing: Too Much Sex, Not
Enough Affection.
Mrs. Fitzwaring (Charlotte Rampling), a shadowy Black Widow, and Lang’s benefactor.
Bernard (Christopher Neame), Fitzwaring’s Chauffeur and violent right-hand man.
Cookie (Robin Johnson), Fitzwaring’s daughter.
Hal Petersham (Daniel Stern), Dexter’s friend and colleague.
Graham Corey (Jay Patterson), Dexter’s disgruntled colleague.
Their other directing credits include
Super Mario Bros (1993), and the Max Headroom TV show (1985).
This neo-noir mystery
thriller successfully has all the elements and atmosphere of a classic noir:
Rain-soaked streets.
Light cutting through Venetian blinds.
Suspicion and mistakes along wrong trails and dead-end leads.
Hard-nosed cops, hardboiled dialogue, and sardonic wit.
Unscrupulous characters chasing their own selfish motives.
A killer lurking in the shadows, his motive as-yet unknown.
An ordinary man, who doesn’t consider himself extraordinary, thrown into extraordinary circumstances.
Rain-soaked streets.
Light cutting through Venetian blinds.
Suspicion and mistakes along wrong trails and dead-end leads.
Hard-nosed cops, hardboiled dialogue, and sardonic wit.
Unscrupulous characters chasing their own selfish motives.
A killer lurking in the shadows, his motive as-yet unknown.
An ordinary man, who doesn’t consider himself extraordinary, thrown into extraordinary circumstances.
The production company,
Touchstone Pictures, set the tone for an old-style thriller.
Their logo
and name appear on screen in monochrome black and white, with a thunder crack
and lightning flash, before the movie even starts.
Two suspenseful
cliff-hanger set-pieces involve the off-camera killer indulging in some nail
gun fun, while Dexter and Sydney get unstuck in an ascending elevator
car, and a violent confrontation with two characters ending up dead in a tar
pit.
The cinematography and
editing are also effective, particularly in the scenes where Dexter looks out of
a high-rise dormitory window, the poison in his system taking hold, inducing in
him a reaction of acrophobia.
Dexter sees himself plummeting to the sidewalk.
A
sense of what Lang might have glimpsed in his last moments, as he plunged from
the college rooftop.
The reveal is a sudden,
but logical twist, with an insightful statement on the real value and reward of
what it is to be a writer.
He has no other choice.
We know from the first scene
that he’s a dead man walking, searching for the motive and culprit behind his
own murder.
His story and quest are told with gallows humor and energetic pacing.
The green-eyed monster
of jealousy, poisoning minds, like the luminous green poison slowly killing
Dexter.
The light intensifies and his silhouette vanishes.
As the end credits roll, it's a cinematic fade to black for Dexter and the audience.
As the end credits roll, it's a cinematic fade to black for Dexter and the audience.
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