Movie Review - The Dead Don't Die

This is a zombie comedy featuring Bill Murray. If one recalls, there already has been a zombie comedy featuring Bill Murray. It was called Zombieland (2009) and it was considered a box office hit. It was at least successful enough that a sequel is being released this year, nearly ten years later. It was also critically acclaimed. It was very funny, boisterously so. This film, written and directed by Jim Jarmusch, isn't as boisterous. The humor is typical Jarmusch-style humor. His humor tends to be on the dry side, droll or deadpan. This is based on the fact that most if not all of the Jarmusch comedies I've seen have been ones featuring Murray and that tends to be his comedic style in most of them. It's the same kind of droll and deadpan humor here.

Murray plays Cliff Robertson, the chief of police in a small town known as Centerville. The police force consists of only three people, He's an elderly guy who seems like he's close to retirement and isn't too invested in his job any more. He's lived in Centerville probably for all his life. He knows everybody and every inch of the town. Therefore, not much phases or surprises him. This is evident in the opening scene where a homeless man accused of theft shoots at him and his deputy, but Cliff knows who the homeless man is and he doesn't do anything about it. He simply walks away.

Knowing Jarmusch, this is perhaps a commentary on the police. I'm not exactly sure what the commentary is. It could be that certain police officers, perhaps officers of a certain age, don't care about certain people or perhaps shouldn't care about certain people. The homeless guy named Hermit Bob, played by Tom Waits who has been in several Jarmusch films like Murray, was accused of stealing chickens from a redneck, played by Steve Buscemi (The Death of Stalin and Fargo), who is obviously a proxy for a supporter of President Donald Trump. Maybe Jarmusch is trying to make some distinction between the homeless and Trump supporters. What muddles things is that Hermit Bob shoots at two cops and nothing is done. It just seems incredulous that if Hermit Bob were African-American or Muslim, walking away is not something that would have happened. Walking away or not being as aggressive toward a white guy is sadly something that could happen in the real world.

Adam Driver (Star Wars: The Force Awakens and BlacKkKlansman) co-stars as Ronnie Peterson, a deputy or officer that works with Cliff. Ronnie's personality isn't that far removed from Cliff's. He's just younger. He's not as jaded as Cliff. He does care more about the job. When Hermit Bob shoots at them, Ronnie wants to do something like arrest him. He doesn't insist or try to override Cliff when Cliff wants to walk away from Hermit Bob. He doesn't really contrast with Cliff in any other regard. Besides the joke of his tall, lanky body driving a compact car, the only thing he's there to do is make meta-commentary or be the subject of meta-commentary.

First, he indicates that they're in a movie. He never breaks the fourth wall as Mel Brooks does in Spaceballs (1987). Yet, Ronnie makes references that indicate they're in a movie, which unfortunately takes away any kind of stakes or terror that something like Zombieland or Shaun of the Dead (2004) had. Ronnie's references though aren't really useful or build to anything substantial. It's not much of a thing in the narrative. It's merely something that is there.

Tilda Swinton (Doctor Strange and The Chronicles of Narnia) also co-stars as Zelda Winston, a mortician that works in Centerville. She runs a funeral home. She's Scottish. She's apparently Buddhist and she knows how to wield a samurai sword. If this were the zombie TV series The Walking Dead, she would be the Scottish version of Michonne. She proves to be an excellent and efficient, zombie killer. Yet, besides seeing her skillfully swing the blade, there's no real point to her character either.

There's also a bunch of random characters, played by fairly well-known actors, who show up. There's no real point to them either, besides being victims to be killed by zombies. Yet, Jarmusch doesn't even depict the deaths of some of them. Pop star Selena Gomez is present here, but her character of Zoe is a veritable non-entity. A racist joke is made about her being Mexican, but we learn nothing about her, except she's on the road with two young guys. One is Jack, played by Austin Butler (Once Upon a Time in Hollywood) and the other is Zack, played by Luka Sabbat (Grown-ish), but we learn nothing more about them, beside the car they're driving. Jarmusch doesn't even depict them getting attacked by zombies. The question is why were they even in this film.

Most of the time, zombie films are satires about certain social issues. Jarmusch has a thing about the zombies constantly repeating the last thing they were doing when they were alive or being obsessed with one particular thing. This is possibly Jarmusch's way of satirizing American culture by having zombies be obsessed not just with cannibalizing people but also with various materialistic things, up to and including social media. Zombies on smart phones is an actual thing that is briefly shown. It's something to try to grasp in this film, but it gets lost in the muddle that is the rest of the narrative.

Rated R for zombie violence, gore and language.
Running Time: 1 hr. and 44 mins.

Available on DVD and VOD.