DVD Release: February 14, 2012
Review by James Klein
Wow, talk about false advertisement. The Mortician is promoted and packaged like this is a horror film. Far from it. Much like films such as Boyz N the Hood and Menace II Society, this urban drama tries to be a life story about a lonely man helping a down on their luck family by getting away from an evil street gangster. While the previous films I mentioned worked due to the talent behind the camera and also in budget, The Mortician lacks the same heart and drama due to its extremely low budget and an oddly all British crew (shown in the making of featurette on the DVD) who just don’t seem to know what exactly makes an urban drama click.
The Mortician is about…well, a mortician. Played by Method Man, the mortician is a lonely, quiet, nerdy man who lives alone in a small apartment where he does taxidermy on the side and his only contact with anyone is when he goes to take refugee at a local hooker’s apartment. You know, the movie hooker whose beautiful and has a heart of goal. Even though the film is set in a real nasty crime filled area, the hooker is drop dead gorgeous and is always kind to her (Method) man.
While street crime and filth fill the streets, the mortician is busy fixing up all the dead bodies that come his way. When a beautiful young woman pulled from the canal is given to him, her young son tries to get in to see his dead mother but the mortician chases him away. When the boy’s ex-con uncle begins to work for the mortician, we find out that there is more to this dead body that is lead to believe. While the mortician sees much of himself in this young boy, he finally takes it upon himself to save the boy from this life of crime and help him find closure for his mother’s death.
I will say I expected The Mortician to be this silly over the top horror film and was glad to find a decent if not muddled story about a lonesome man with a dark past helping a young boy confront his. Method Man plays the mortician perfectly and shows great depth as an actor. The rest of the cast is fine although very mis-cast, especially Dash Mihok as Carver, the deadly gang member who is out to kill the boy but just looks like a skinny Irish hoodlum and Edward Furlong in a small, thankless role as the mortician’s supervisor. The cast just seems to “Hollywood” to me. They act fine but I never believed any of them would be criminals or poverty stricken inner-city folk. Even the setting looked too phony to me, as if the film makers were on the set of Death Wish 3 or Escape From New York. I just didn’t buy it. Maybe it was because of the budget. However, this film was shot in 3-D for God knows what reason. Is this the first drama shot in 3-D?
While the story is interesting, the pacing is very slow. At the 40 minute mark nothing had happened in this movie aside from the young woman’s death. I don’t mind character build up but let’s get a move on. At 89 minutes, the movie just dragged. It didn’t help that some of the music for the film seemed so made for TV-ish and was just too melodramatic and over the top. I do appreciate what the film makers tried to do but they end up making a forgettable film with good intentions.
