Good story, Not enough for a whole film

Don't listen to the negative reviews

Absolutely the worst movie.

I like movies that are aware of what they are selling... without [any] greater aspirations than to make people laugh and that's it.

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.

Things To Do In Denver When You're Dead is a crackling, explosively verbose, darkly comic 90's neo noir. In other words, right up my crime infested alley. It operates on a heightened plane of larger than life thugs, Machiavellian crime bosses and an almost beat poetry by way of Shakespeare writing style, courtesy of Scott Rosenberg's pen. The writing is one of the best quality's of this film, and when you watch it and find out what buckwheats and boat drinks are, you'll get it. Andy Garcia turns on the slick as Jimmy The Saint, an ex mobster on the path to enlightenment, attempting to open his own business, called Afterlife Advice, where dying people record pearls of wisdom for their loved ones to see after they're gone. He is called back into action for a job by his old employer, a creepy, all powerful gangster known only as The Man With The Plan, who is played by, you guessed it... Christopher Walken. He is a a perverted, unsettling ghoul in the role, paralysed from the neck down and confined to a blow tube operated wheelchair, lurking in his dimly lit, Gothic mansion and hurling threatening orders like Max Schreck from Nosferatu. He coaxes Jimmy into pulling his old crew together for one last job, a personal one involving Walken's even creepier son. Of course the job goes horrendously wrong, resulting in Walken's wrath raining down upon each and every one of Jimmy's crew, as they all scramble, most of the, unsuccessfully to escape Denver. It's a stark, largely unpleasant bit of violent fun with a snappy vernacular all its own, but don't mistake my review as making out as pure darkness, without a heartbeat. There's an incredibly romantic core, as Jimmy falls in love with two vastly different, beautiful girls at once: an angelic socialite from the other side of the tracks named Dagney, played by the ever gorgeous Gabrielle Anwar, and Lucinda, a scuzzy, spunky hooker with a heart of gold played with twitchy, heartfelt energy by Fairuza Balk. Jimmy's crew is a pockmarked landscape of rough and tumble character actors, all with their own distinct flavour. William Forsythe is aces as Big Bear Franchise, a family man thug, Christopher Lloyd displays warmth and feeling as Pieces, the veteran of the crew, Bill Nunn is great as Easy Wind, and Treat Williams comes out of left field as Critical Bill, a nickname reminiscent of the condition he puts people in, as he's an absolute live wire lunatic, who literally uses corpses at the morgue he works at for punching bags, because his shrink told him he needs an outlet for his rage. Yeah. Steve Buscemi has a sly role as dangerous hit-man named Mr. Shhhhh, because he barely says a word. There's also great work from Jack Warden, Bill Cobbs, Don Cheadle and Glenn Plummer. I have to reiterate again what a lovely script it has, like a particular lingo all its own, that the characters wear like a verbal glove, and share with you with every interaction they have. It's an extremely overlooked bit of hard boiled fun, with just the right touches of scary, shocking violence, world weary golden age regret, with a stable full of wild, wacky characters to keep you more than entertained. Check it out.

This film shines as a darkly comedic underworld drama with an unbelievably appropriate cast of actors from legends like Walken and Garcia on down to favorite supporting actors like Steve Buscemi and Christopher Lloyd. The resulting interplay between their characters produces some of the best dialog of the contemporary gangster drama in the setting of post-oil-boom Denver. The plot starts out thin but builds rapidly as Walken's character of "The Man with the Plan " is revealed as a mean-spirited psychopath with a need to spread his own misery to everyone inside his orbit. Garcia's portrayal of dapper, charming ex-gangster Jimmy the Saint, AKA "The Bitch's Bastard" is flawless and ties together the rest of the cast into a plausible crew of small time crooks brought together for some easy money. As the "action" they were conscripted for turns tragic and they find themselves in the claws of Walken's pressure-sore ravaged underworld boss, the film finds surer footing, with Walken and Buscemi delivering convincing, terrifying portrayals of malice in its purest form. While the film's ending leaves something to be desired, the work as a whole has an excellent neo-noir atmosphere and top-notch dialog that earns it a place among more well-known gangster films like "The Way of the Gun" and the "The Usual Suspects."

This film could have been so much better. The storyline is good and offered the potential for the making of an excellent film, but ultimately it disappointed, which was a real shame.I'll give you my opinion on what really let this film down. There were two things: Andy Garcia - he's an average actor at best and here, he really spoilt the essence of the main character. He didn't have enough depth, conviction or raw energy needed for such a dark mob character. He put too much emphasis on typically ridiculous Hollywood style over-acting, and not enough to reflect what the character was about. Shame on the casting director for picking him. Someone more in the mould of Harvey Keitel or Gary Oldman would have been perfect.His relationship with the main lady - unlike other mob films where there is genuine development of a love interest, this film had a haphazard and an unconvincing romance story. In other films, like Carlito's way, Casino, Goodfellas, there was so much more on offer and the love interests became an integral part of the mobsters lives. Here, it was a dreary and irritating sideshow.There are very good parts of the film. Chrisopher Walken, who I am a big fan of, was excellent. His role as the crippled mob boss was perfectly cast and he played it superbly. He was suitably detached, unflinching, dark and menacing.Steve Buscemi, who I am also a fan of, was also excellent. He was also cast perfectly as the quiet, quirky yet violent hit man.Overall, the story line was good, Walken and Buscemi and some of the supporting actors were excellent, but the main character and the over-emphasis on style ultimately let this film down.Worth a watch, but I struggle to tell you much about it. For me, that's enough of a sign.