Analyze this -- no, seriously, analyze it

reviewed Wed, 29 Mar 2000

Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai is a typical Jim Jarmusch film in that you never really know where you're going, and you're not going to get there in any hurry. It may be the first Zen Mafia movie with a gangsta rap soundtrack. While it's interesting and unique, I was somewhat disappointed. Jarmusch's deadpan wit is sprinkled throughout the movie, but the violence was nearly as thoughtless as in your standard Schwarzenegger film. I was expecting something more along the lines of Three Kings, where bullets had greater meaning and consequence.

Forest Whitaker is Ghost Dog, a hitman who carries out Mob contracts according to the ancient samurai code. Through most of the movie, his face is expressionless and impenetrable; very Zen, perhaps, but it doesn't exactly make for riveting cinema. He's much better when he drops the enigmatic facade and interacts with others, especially a little girl he meets in a park and his best friend, ice cream vendor Remi (Isaach De Bankolé), who speaks only French. De Bankolé, who played the Parisian cab driver in Jarmusch's Night on Earth, is tremendously entertaining.

In the end, I can only really say what everyone says about nearly every Jarmusch film: if you like his work, you'll like this; if you don't, this won't change your mind. If I weren't so tired, and if my head weren't throbbing from the pounding rap soundtrack (which didn't do my work-induced headache any favors), I would maybe try for a little more in-depth analysis, like the significance of Ghost Dog's love for pigeons (keeping pigeons seems to be movie code for showing a tough guy's tender side, like in On the Waterfront), or the cultural resonance of the Mafia boss's obsession with violent cartoons. But I won't.

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