John Chard

Kiss of life required to ignite this film noir re-imaging. A remake of the 1956 film of the same name, A Kiss Before Dying is directed by James Dearden and Dearden adapts the screenplay from Ira Levin's novel. It stars Sean Young, Matt Dillon, Max von Sydow, Dianne Ladd and James Russo. Music is by Howard Shore and cinematography by Mike Southon. Story has Dillon as a troubled young man who murders his pregnant girlfriend (Young) and then hones in on her twin sister (Young again obviously) for further psychotic shenanigans. It's just about an average thriller at best, where even if the plot line and character motivations are intriguing enough to hold the attention to keep one interested to the ending, even there the outcome is rushed and unsatisfying. From the negative reaction at the initial test screenings, to Golden Raspberry awards, and tales of rewrites and re-shoots et al, this noir reboot is messy. The tie-in to Hitchcock's Vertigo is glaringly "not" homage worthy, and not just content with that, director Dearden tries to use some of Hitchcock's macabre black humour to unintentionally "not" witty results. So with Young on hilariously bad form as well, the thriller aspects strain to get resuscitated for dramatic worth. Dearden does show some nice touches with his camera-work, and there's a lurid quality to Southon's colour lenses that pay respect in heart to Levin's source material, but ultimately it's hard to recommend seriously to noir fans and the 56 version (itself not without problems) is still the way to go. 5/10