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Rating: What is there left to do in Denver when you know that you have forty-eight hours to get out before being killed like a dog? Maybe stop to love the girl of your life you just met or save your friends because you feel guilty for putting them in the same situation....
Jimmy the Saint is a former gangster and now runs a company that films the final words of terminally ill patients who want to leave a testimony of themselves to their families before dying. He is therefore a man used to "working" with death, both legally and illegally, yet he is a good man, a person with style who always dresses elegantly and has a word of comfort for everyone. When the ruthless boss, paralyzed in a wheelchair, entrusts him with an amateurish job, he cannot refuse, and thus reorganizes his old gang of ex-convicts, only it consists of losers like him and everything goes to hell. They have neither the strength nor the will to save themselves from Fate and they have no choice but to wait for the terrifying Mr. Shhhh, an infallible killer hired by the boss to make them die a "bad end," meaning not immediately but through the most atrocious suffering.
In 1995, Gary Fleder, in his first feature film, sets up a noir based more on the inevitability of fate than on coincidence, much like the classics "The Killing" by Kubrick and "The Asphalt Jungle" by Huston. The epic tragedy pacing is confirmed by the narration of the old man sitting at the bar who always tells the same story of the Saint to new patrons. However, the director embarks on a misleading operation that keeps the narrative tension loosened by the grotesque physiognomy, even character-wise, of the characters. While Jimmy the Saint is an Andy Garcia serene and restrained in his oversized Armani suit, Cristopher Walken is a terrifying paraplegic boss who embodies the hand of cynical and cruel fate that admits no deviations. The other main actors are like caricatures: Treat Williams as a magnificent psychopath who outlines a Bill Emergency Room ("...I am Godzilla and you are Japan!") who trains with corpses hanging from the ceiling to use them as a punching bag, Cristopher Lloyd as Pieces, a fun-loving ex-gangster who loses his necrotic fingers, reduced to being a projectionist in a sleazy porn cinema, Steve Buscemi portrays a Mr. Shhh for the ages, a frail killer cold and silent like a ridiculous undertaker yet capable of confronting anyone.
And Jimmy the Saint, always accustomed to dealing with death, will he be able to escape his fate? Perhaps, if he will forever remain in the heart of the woman he realized he loves.... perhaps, if he lets his seed generate another life in the body of the little prostitute he has always defended.... perhaps, if his story will be told to every new patron at the bar... perhaps he will succeed.
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