{"id":665,"date":"2008-02-25T22:08:57","date_gmt":"2008-02-26T03:08:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/chadossman.com\/blog\/2008\/02\/25\/you-kill-me\/"},"modified":"2022-10-09T10:20:20","modified_gmt":"2022-10-09T14:20:20","slug":"you-kill-me","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/chadossman.com\/blog\/you-kill-me\/","title":{"rendered":"T\u00e9a Leoni clings to the menacing Ben Kingsley in You Kill Me"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The first thing to say about You Kill Me<\/em> is to give props to Ben Kingsley, if for no other reason than my fear that he will break my kneecaps if I don’t. Even after his terrifying turn in Sexy Beast<\/em>, it’s still a surprise to see how perfectly natural for him to inhabit a role like Frank, an almost superhumanly talented mob assassin. For a man of a certain age who once played Ghandi, he can certainly act up some serious physical menace. But You Kill Me<\/em> gives him a chance to enrich this character type instead of merely repeat it. In Sexy Beast<\/em>, he was funny because<\/em> he was so very extremely menacing. Here, his character is menacing and<\/em> funny.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You Kill Me<\/em> is a bicoastal film, literally illustrating Frank’s different worlds by setting the action in two different cities. In Buffalo, You Kill Me<\/em> shares with The Sopranos<\/em> a look into the operations of modern-day gangsters. Their lives are somewhat less exciting than the fantasy lucrative lifestyle seen in The Godfather<\/em> and Scarface<\/em>, but still sharply divided by cultural heritage and identity. Frank may seem to be a pathetic figure, but when sober, he is the sole factor keeping his small-time Polish crime family in business.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Yeah, I find alcoholic assassins irresistible too<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The problem is, he is sober less and less when the story opens, and his family must fix him in order to survive. So Frank is ordered from Buffalo to San Francisco to dry out, leaving behind his family (both by blood and criminal association) and yet quickly forging a new one: Dave (Bill Pullman), a shady real-estate dealer no better than a gangster himself; Tom (Luke Wilson), a gay fellow alcoholic; and implausible love interest Laurel (T\u00e9a Leoni, also an executive producer).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Ben
This man played Ghandi<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The problem with Laurel is not only the creepy age differential (a long-standing Hollywood pox from which it seems even indies aren’t immune), but with her underdeveloped character. What little we learn of her history (a recently deceased, unloved stepfather) seems insufficient to explain what makes her so lonely and desperate that she would attach herself to possibly the most unstable and unreliable person in the world. What happened to her to make her so blas\u00e9 and amoral that she clings so fervently to Frank and cross the country to risk her life for him?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The first thing to say about You Kill Me is to give props to Ben Kingsley, if for no other reason than my fear that he will break my kneecaps if I don’t. Even after his terrifying turn in Sexy Beast, it’s still a surprise to see how perfectly natural for him to inhabit a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4946,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[15,2],"tags":[1122,1123,77,1125,319,1124],"class_list":["post-665","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-3-stars","category-movies","tag-ben-kingsley","tag-bill-pullman","tag-comedy","tag-gangster","tag-luke-wilson","tag-tea-leoni"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/chadossman.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/02\/you-kill-me-feature.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pa9lhB-aJ","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":5890,"url":"https:\/\/chadossman.com\/blog\/ghost-town-is-the-sixth-sense-as-a-romantic-comedy\/","url_meta":{"origin":665,"position":0},"title":"Ghost Town is The Sixth Sense as a romantic comedy","author":"Chad Ossman","date":"September 19, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"David Koepp's Ghost Town pulls at the heartstrings without being too nauseating. 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Paycheck, scoring a mere PG-13 from the MPAA,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "2 Stars"","block_context":{"text":"2 Stars","link":"https:\/\/chadossman.com\/blog\/category\/ratings\/2-stars\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Ben Affleck and Uma Thurman in Paycheck","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chadossman.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/paycheck.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chadossman.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/paycheck.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chadossman.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/paycheck.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chadossman.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/paycheck.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chadossman.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/paycheck.jpg?resize=1050%2C600&ssl=1 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":5695,"url":"https:\/\/chadossman.com\/blog\/toys-shoot-to-kill-in-g-i-joe-retaliation\/","url_meta":{"origin":665,"position":2},"title":"Toys shoot to kill in G.I. 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Six years of goodwill very nearly went out the window along with my television, thanks to its extremely frustrating final run of episodes. Close to the end, I attempted to resolve myself to the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "1 Star"","block_context":{"text":"1 Star","link":"https:\/\/chadossman.com\/blog\/category\/ratings\/1-star\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chadossman.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/06\/lost-finale.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chadossman.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/06\/lost-finale.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chadossman.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/06\/lost-finale.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chadossman.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/06\/lost-finale.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chadossman.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/06\/lost-finale.jpg?resize=1050%2C600&ssl=1 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":1875,"url":"https:\/\/chadossman.com\/blog\/generation-kill\/","url_meta":{"origin":665,"position":4},"title":"Semper Gumby: HBO’s Generation Kill","author":"Chad Ossman","date":"July 28, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"The HBO miniseries Generation Kill comes from David Simon and Ed Burns, the masterminds behind the superlative series The Wire. Simon himself is a former journalist, the state of the industry thereof being a primary preoccupation of the fifth season of the The Wire. So it makes sense that he\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "3 Stars"","block_context":{"text":"3 Stars","link":"https:\/\/chadossman.com\/blog\/category\/ratings\/3-stars\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Generation Kill","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chadossman.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/07\/generation-kill.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chadossman.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/07\/generation-kill.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chadossman.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/07\/generation-kill.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chadossman.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/07\/generation-kill.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chadossman.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/07\/generation-kill.jpg?resize=1050%2C600&ssl=1 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":8959,"url":"https:\/\/chadossman.com\/blog\/kill-bill-the-whole-bloody-affair-is-a-glorified-double-feature\/","url_meta":{"origin":665,"position":5},"title":"Kill Bill: The Whole Bloody Affair is a glorified double feature","author":"Chad Ossman","date":"December 10, 2025","format":false,"excerpt":"My simplistic take on the mini-controversy over Quentin Tarantino casually bad-mouthing Paul Dano: he still talks about movies like a fan, not a professional. Pithy dismissals, sweeping generalizations, and professions of binary love or hate are for movie buffs on Letterboxd, but are uncouth coming from a working filmmaker. 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