A riveting crime drama.
Kiss of Death (1995)
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Reviews Counted:35
Fresh:23
Rotten:12
Average Rating:6.3/10
Runtime: 1 hr 41 mins
Genre: Dramas
Synopsis: KISS OF DEATH opens with ex-convict Jimmy Kilmartin (David Caruso) attempting to distance himself from his shady past. His cousin, Ronny (Michael Rapaport), shows up at his door begging for help... KISS OF DEATH opens with ex-convict Jimmy Kilmartin (David Caruso) attempting to distance himself from his shady past. His cousin, Ronny (Michael Rapaport), shows up at his door begging for help with one more heist, and Jimmy agrees to participate against his better judgment. Things go sour when a detective is shot, and Jimmy is left to take the fall. As Jimmy's hopes for a normal life with his wife (Helen Hunt) and daughter fade, he becomes a pawn of the police in their attempts to bring down a psychotic gangster named Little Junior (Nicolas Cage). Caruso and a pumped-up, supremely menacing Cage highlight a spectacular cast that also features Samuel L. Jackson as the cop who becomes Jimmy's solitary ally and Stanley Tucci as a Machiavellian district attorney. Novelist Richard Price supplies the screenplay, and director Barber Schroeder (SINGLE WHITE FEMALE) ensures that KISS OF DEATH, based loosely on the 1947 film of the same name, unfolds with the grooved precision of a well-made watch while bristling at every turn with the volatile life of a vividly imagined criminal underworld. [More]
Starring: David Caruso, Nicolas Cage, Samuel L. Jackson, Kathryn Erbe
Starring: David Caruso, Nicolas Cage, Samuel L. Jackson, Kathryn Erbe, Helen Hunt, Michael Rapaport, Ving Rhames, Stanley Tucci
Director: Barbet Schroeder
Director: Barbet Schroeder
Composer: Trevor Jones
Screenwriter: Richard Price
Producer: Barbet Schroeder, Susan Hoffman
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Reviews for Kiss of Death
Price has a good sense of story structure, and this remake of the 1947 thriller is taut and engrossing.
Cage, one of the few American actors who gets more interesting from film to film, comes close to kidnaping the picture as Little Junior, a pumped-up but asthmatic thug who, like King Kong, is a gorilla with a wistful air about him.
If you've got three spare hours and a yen for good filmmaking, skip Kiss and rent the real thing, not the pale copy.
Every time Caruso has a scene with Jackson or Cage, he seems to be out of his depth.
It's worth the price of admission just for a certain hilarious twist in Little Junior's strip joint
Cage dominates the camera, stealing scenes by the sheer intensity of his inimitable strangeness.
The picture is watchable, but nothing about it will linger, except perhaps the feeling that, with a more polished script, it might have been significantly better.
Caruso's acting is vivid, but amazingly quiet and internal, and it's fascinating to watch the kaleidoscopically conflicted emotions battle beneath his controlled surface.
Schroeder's film is fun to watch, even when it's being predictable or brutal, but its memory is nearly gone the next day.
If you savor movies about sleazy plea bargains and other lawyer hardballing, Death has its moments. Otherwise the latest from director Barbet Schroeder is only a movie of moments.
Now that Woody Allen has abdicated the throne, Price is the soul-of-New-York screenwriter.
Caruso is unable to give Jimmy any humanity, delivering every line in the same hushed, primed-to-explode manner.
Latest News for Kiss of Death
October 20, 2005:
Trailer Bulletin: Freedomland
From director Joe Roth and screenwriter Richard Price comes "Freedomland," an apparently racially-charged kidnapping thriller that stars Samuel L. Jackson, Julianne... More...
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