Film Review: Kiss of Death (1995)

In 1990s American television was still considered to be minor league by actors striving for true global stardom. One of them was David Caruso, who played Detective John Kelly in police show NYPD Blue. After only one season Caruso decided to leave the show for apparently greener pastures of big screen and starred in two ambitious films that ultimately turned out to be box office flops. One was William Friedkin’s Jade and another was Kiss of Death, directed by Barbet Schroeder.

Kiss of Death is remake of 1947 film noir starring Victor Mature. In the new version Caruso plays the Jimmy Kilmartin, ex convict who struggles to have a new normal life with recovering alcoholic wife Beverly (played by Helen Hunt) and their young daughter Corinna. One day he is approached by cousin Ronnie Gannon (played by Michael Rapaport) who begs him to help him drive stolen cars for psychopathic gang boss Little Junior (played by Nicolas Cage). Seemingly quick and simple operation goes terribly wrong and Jimmy is arrested. He, however, refuses to testify against Ronnie and Little Junior and, in exchange, gets promise that his wife will be provided for while he serves prison sentence. Ronnie, however, takes advantage of the situation, leading Beverly to return to drinking and ultimately die as a result. After learning about this, Jimmy decides to become informant for District Attorney Frank Zioli (played by Stanley Tucci), but insists that he is allowed to serve full sentence in order to avoid suspicion. After release he gets new job and marries Beverly’s sister Rosie D’Amico (played by Kathryn Erbe), but police detective Calvin Hart (played by Samuel L. Jackson) keeps him as an informant during sting operation directed against Little Junior and his drug dealing partner Omar (played by Ving Rhames).

If Caruso’s intention was to prove that he could carry feature film he succeeded here, unlike in rightfully scolded Jade. He plays ordinary protagonist from blue collar background with great ease and authenticity and is quite able to evoke audience’s sympathy for his plight. Caruso’s main problem in this film is presence of Nicolas Cage, much better and more formidable actor who delivers memorable performance as complex villain. Cage plays Little Junior as something more that one-dimensional monster, allowing audience to speculate that his evil ways were product of insecurities fuelled by asthma and his own father, played by Philip Baker Hall in small role, dying from the same disease. Cage even allows character to show a good side by trying to be genuinely friendly to Jimmy only to resort to paranoia and irrational violence at next moment. Cage is quite impressive, but appears relatively little in the first part of the film, where the main villain happens to be despicable character played by Michael Rappaport. He, like Helen Hunt, disappears relatively early, though. Kathryn Erbe, who is decent actress, lacks proper chemistry with Caruso and that is apparent in the second part of the film.

Problems with casting are mostly product of script by Richard Price which is flawed despite featuring few interesting twists. They are, however, more than compensated by confident direction by Barbet Schroeder. He approaches material in a simple way, depicting New York City, where the plot takes place, as generic American city with most of the scenes appearing in bleak industrial setting. The notable exception is Little Junior’s strip club, place featuring bright colours and setting of few notably humorous scenes that provide relief from otherwise serious and often dark story. Schroeder and the rest of the cast make Kiss of Death a good genre piece that could be appreciated by fans of film noir and its modern equivalents. The audience and critics originally weren’t that impressed and this film, like Jade, turned into massive failure. Caruso’s career was seriously affected and he had to spend few years in wilderness before returning to small screen and triumphantly establishing himself as icon of popular culture as Horatio Caine in CSI: Miami.

RATING: 6/10 (++)

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