Evan Kim, as Inspector Harry's Chinese-American partner, is allowed to display some martial-arts machismo. Liam Neeson, playing a director of low-budget slasher movies who is high on Harry's list of suspects in a serial-killer case, corners the market in upscale cynicism. James Carrey gets to go fruitfully bananas as a rock star on the mainline to an early grave. And David Hunt, as a maniac film fancier named Harlan, provides the jolt of menace. Hunt can even terrify a film critic before slicing her to shreds -- the ultimate negative review. No such fun for Clint; he mainly stands there and simmers.
Oh, Harry may shoot or squash or harpoon the odd malefactor. He may find fellowship with Patricia Clarkson, a Sondra Locke look-alike who plays a prying TV reporter. And he does get to drive in the big chase scene, in which a remote-controlled toy car with explosives attached hounds Harry through the town's roller-coaster streets.
True Californians, he and his partner never think to get out and run for cover. But then, this picture's soul is located 400 miles south, in the Los Angeles movie industry, where metaphorical backstabbing is business as usual. "It's not a rip-off," says the slasher auteur about his latest film. "It's a homage."
That must make The Dead Pool a homage to
every action thriller since Little Caesar.
It is also, with its clued-in cynicism and some
snazzy repartee, maybe the best movie ever directed
by a man named Buddy. And it surely proves
that when it comes to sulfurous star quality, the
genie was right. -Richard Corliss
