I love it when a movie is based on a very strange concept
and manages to not only make it work but make it believable. When I first
heard a description of this movie my first reaction was "What?!" It seemed
too silly to be taken seriously. A young black man living in an inner city
operates as a hitman, living his life by the code of the samurai in
ancient Japan. Ummm... okay. Why?
There is no detailed answer to why. All we know about this
man, who calls himself Ghost Dog (Forest Whitaker), is that he was saved
from being beaten to death by a mid-level mafia boss, Louie (John Tormey).
Somehow, as a result of this, he recreates himself by the code of the
samurai and becomes a hitman working for the man who saved him. They never
meet face to face, communicating only by carrier pigeon. Ghost Dog doesn't
get paid by the job. Instead he is paid annually on the first day of
autumn. This is all a little weird but it's fine with Louie because Ghost
Dog is the perfect hitman. He never fails and he's completely
untraceable.
Unfortunately something goes wrong on one of Ghost Dog's
jobs. Sent to take out another mafia boss, he accidentally discovers the
daughter of another boss in the guy's bedroom. He finishes the job but
leaves her unharmed. For some reason this is really offensive to the other
bosses and they order Louie to have Ghost Dog terminated or Louie will be
the one terminated. The inability to properly explain this motivation is
the movie's single biggest failing. The story needed an excuse to have
people try and kill Ghost Dog and his boss. It's just a really lame
excuse. A little more work on the story could have made this a great film
instead of a very good one.
Louie warns Ghost Dog that people are now after him. So our
hero sets about trying to eliminate anyone who might threaten him or his
employer. Now this description could easily having you thinking that this
is an action movie. To a degree it is but the pace of the film is so slow
and methodical that the description doesn't sit right. This is really more
of a character study with some action thrown in for good measure.
The bulk of the movie is spent watching how Ghost Dog lives.
He lives alone in a shack on top of a building with a pigeon coop. He
spends most of his time training and reading. His favorite books are
The Way of the Samurai and Rashomon. For fun he builds his
own silencer for his guns. To say he's a bit obsessed is putting it
mildly. Clearly something in this guy snapped a while ago and he is now
fixated on this lifestyle despite the fact that it would appear to be
completely at odds with the world around him.
His only friend in life is a Haitian man who runs an ice
cream truck. The two don't even speak the same language but somehow still
enjoy each other's company. In fact they spend a lot of time unwittingly
repeating what the other has just said. The only other person Ghost Dog
spends any time with is a young girl who talks to him in the park and asks
about his strange lifestyle.
Forest Whitaker is probably the perfect choice for this
role. He's a large man who can appear threatening when he needs to but
also has the ability to project an aura of great sadness around the
character. This man has gone to great lengths to try and make sense of his
life but has somehow missed just how strange he has made himself at the
same time. This character would not have been believable in the hands of a
less capable actor. Whitaker manages to make him seem real though. We know
Ghost Dog isn't playing with a full deck but we never think of him as
being crazy. We think his lifestyle is crazy but somehow that makes him
seem sane, until you compare him back to the rest of the world of
course.
The movie also has a strong theme of old cultures fighting
to survive. The mafia, as presented here, are fossils, a group on the way
out. All of them are old and/or out of shape. They still want to be
powerful criminals but the rest of the world has left them behind.
Culturally they can't understand Ghost Dog but he represents the same
thing. He is living the life of a long dead culture and struggling to
survive in the face of a newer system. Both Ghost Dog and the mafia
generate a lot of sublime laughs in this way.
The DVD contains a scene that was left out of the movie that
illustrates this perfectly. I only mention it because it's a way to make
my point without spoiling the story. The scene shows the old mafia bosses
meeting with their accountant. He tells them that pretty much all of their
businesses are tanking and they should consider filing for bankruptcy. The
absurdity of a criminal organization having to file for bankruptcy for
protection from creditors had me cackling. At the same time you see them
desperately clutching to the one business that isn't losing money. It's a
great scene but I can see why it was left out. Leaving it in would be
liking gift wrapping a present and then hauling out a staple gun to make
sure it stayed wrapped.
The movie makes its points quietly and subtly. Many will
probably find its pace too slow but for me that's the only way it could
work. It features a great score by RZA, part of the rap group Wu-Tang
Clan. I point that out because generally I don't care for that style of
music but the score works wonderfully. So really in the end the only thing
holding this movie back from greatness is a weak plot. Don't let that stop
you from checking it out though.
From
www.tnmc.org
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