My quick rating – 4.4/10. Just Play Dead opens with some upbeat music sweeping over gorgeous ocean views of Gran Canaria before settling in on Sam “Motherfarking” Jackson having a chat with a mob-type gentleman. We are apparently supposed to believe this is the Caribbean, despite Spain being written all over the place. Including flags and license plates that seem rather committed to ruining the illusion. But hey, maybe the Caribbean has just been outsourcing its police force.
As you might expect from a meeting involving Samuel L. Jackson and a criminal mastermind, things go poorly for one of the participants. Specifically, he discovers that he is allergic to death.
From there, we meet Eva Green’s Nora, who is having a flirtatious conversation with surfer dude Chad (Jason Fernández). Once the various murder-and-insurance-fraud schemes start taking shape, the movie jumps back five weeks to fill in the blanks. This is where we meet Dani (Eoin Macken), one of Nora’s bed partners and a New York cop.
The setup is actually pretty decent. Wealthy criminal Jack Wolfe wants to fake his own death, collect a $30 million insurance payout, and frame Chad for killing him. Nora, meanwhile, is tired of being controlled by Jack and decides she would rather kill him for real, frame Chad, and keep the money herself. Jack, naturally, is already several chessboards ahead.
There’s a genuinely funny montage where both sides explain their respective plans for killing the other lover to the dimwitted Chad, who then physically acts out each scenario. It’s one of those moments where the movie briefly remembers that all this murder plotting is supposed to be fun.
Unfortunately, Just Play Dead spends considerably more time being convoluted than creative. Every twist requires another twist, followed by a double-cross, followed by someone explaining the twist out loud because apparently the audience might have wandered off to make a sandwich. I wouldn’t blame you. At one point, you can practically hear the screenplay saying, “OK, everyone caught up? Good, because here’s another thing.”
There are also some distracting editing choices and noticeable sound fluctuations that really shouldn’t be happening in a feature film starring the highest-grossing actor of all time. The movie looks and sounds more like it occasionally lost a fight with its own post-production department.
And if you’re expecting anything resembling the action-comedy energy of the recent Hitman’s Bodyguard movies, just play dead yourself. There’s an explosive yacht showdown, sure, but this isn’t Jackson cutting loose and annihilating people with one-liners and bullets.
I’m sure the script sounded pretty damn good when it was pitched. On screen, however, Just Play Dead is mostly a letdown. Eva Green and Sam Jackson are both capable of much more, but neither can quite rescue this mess. They feel like they’re performing the minimum number of required facial expressions to satisfy their contracts.
Remove them from the cast, and this movie would be considerably worse. Which is about the nicest thing I can say about it.
