TIL DEATH DO US PART
*
Directed by Timothy Woodward Jr.
Starring Natalie Burn, Ser’Darius Blain, Cam Gigandet, Jason Patric, Pancho Moler,
Neb Chupin, Orlando Jones and Nicole Arlyn.
USA 2023, 111 mins., Certificate 15
Released on Digital by Plaion Pictures on April 15th 2024.
Although credited to screenwriters Chad Law and Shane Dax Taylor, you could be forgiven for thinking TIL DEATH DO US PART might be an A.I.-generated hybrid designed to merge all our favourite moments and characters from JOHN WICK, TRUE ROMANCE, READY OR NOT and KILL BILL. If this is the case, The Machines have failed to carry over the wit, excitement, invention, and humanity. Early on, a poor rip-off of Hans Zimmer’s glorious “You’re So Cool” theme from TRUE ROMANCE (itself an adaptation of a Carl Orff piece already appropriated by BADLANDS) makes you realise just how tediously third hand all of this is.
If you glance at the title and the words slightly jumble, you might optimistically expect to see Alf Garnett, back from the dead and supporting the Reform Party. Instead, attractive (and sadly charisma-free) newlyweds Natalie Burn and Ser’Darius Blain are on their honeymoon in Puerto Rico. She likes to party, he’s a Brit / keen fisherman, they meet an older American couple (Jason Patric, Nicole Arlyn) and we become aware they’re part of some shadowy organisation subcontracting assassins to governments around the world. Or something like that.
Enter the Seven Angry Groomsmen, a septet of suited and booted assassins led by psychotic best man Cam Gigandet (great as Volchok in The O.C. but miscast here) and including a token angry dwarf named T-Bone, played by Pancho Moler and required to say “Bitch” in almost every sentence. The armed, would-be dangerous group encroach upon Burn on a “containment mission”. Gigandet cackles as he says things like “Women! Can’t live with ‘em, can’t kill ‘em!” and Burn proves incredibly resilient with knives, backflips and shovels – and as seemingly indestructible as Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
Set to a frankly grating selection of retro jazz standards by The Commandeers to reinforce that “trapped at a horrible wedding” vibe, this strains to capture the flippant humour and outrageous violence of Tarantino but fails to bring anything new or engaging to the party. Moler’s cartoonish, obnoxious character is typical of the film as a whole: clearly cast to bring extra, self-conscious “quirk” and fulfil someone’s post-IN BRUGES suggestion of a “little person with a chainsaw” set piece, he’s stuck with leaden lines and no personality.
The would-be zingers sink without a trace: even Michael Madsen and Dennis Hopper would struggle finding zest in a line like “I’m gonna beat you like your daddy used to”. Most of the movie’s main problems are summed up by a climactic monologue about sharks and dolphins, delivered by Jason Patric in a way that makes you really miss Robert Shaw. Like everything else, it’s an awkward homage to an earlier film beloved by many, it’s self-satisfied and goes on for what seems like an eternity.
Steven West
