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“Just Play Dead” is a film that seems to come from a bygone, post-“Pulp Fiction” era where studios gobbled up any story involving charismatic criminals perpetrating deadly but kinda funny schemes to outwit and/or murder
their counterparts. There’s a reason this subgenre fizzled — very few writers could match the wit and imagination of Tarantino, much less its patron saint, Elmore Leonard. Nobody seems to have told that to screenwriter Dan Gordon (“Wyatt Earp,” “Rambo: Last Blood”), here adapting his own 2016 novel of the same name, about a wealthy crook working with his philandering wife to fake his death.
Even with Samuel L. Jackson among his lead actors and journeyman director Martin Campbell (“Casino Royale,” “GoldenEye”) at the helm, “Just Play Dead” feels more like a tax shelter (especially given its Canary Islands production backdrop) than a proper crime yarn. And though Eva Green, in an eclectic career, has carved a successful niche seducing men into ignoring their better judgment, she seems here to be going through the motions as a femme fatale trying to orchestrate Gordon’s wildly overcomplicated quadruple cross.
Jackson plays Jack Wolfe, a criminal hiding out in the Canary Islands after an associate gets caught with proof that his considerable wealth hasn’t been earned entirely legally. After years of serving as a “sweetener” for his schemes with other ne’er-do-wells, his wife Nora (Green), a former sex worker, is thrilled at the prospect of Jack getting hauled off to jail. But by naming her as 51% owner of his estate when they got married, he’s essentially ensured that she can’t testify against him — and more than that, will share culpability should an indictment be handed down.
To avoid that fate, Jack proposes that Nora help stage his murder, pin the blame on somebody else, and collect the $30 million insurance payout for the two of them to share. Even before Jack’s proposal, Nora had actually already begun the process of recruiting not one but two fall guys for such a task: Dani (Eoin Macken), a local cop who has fallen in love with her, and Chad (Jason Fernández), a hunky surfer easily manipulated by her feminine wiles.
Cautioned by his partner Bianca (Maria Pedraza) against getting too deeply involved with a rich criminal’s wife, Dani begs Nora to run away with him, but refuses to commit murder for her. But when even dim-witted Chad also balks at the plan, Nora is forced to blackmail him into participating. At the same time, Jack contacts Chad, proposing a similar idea with a slightly different outcome: the two of them splitting the insurance money while Nora takes the fall.
Sporting a ponytail that distantly evokes his “Jackie Brown” character Ordell Robbie, Samuel Jackson has seldom seemed more relaxed on screen than he is here as Jack, a crook who knows every angle and has considered every possible outcome. If only that were a good thing: Even given the opportunity to deliver a handful of the know-it-all monologues that made him such a magnetic presence in Tarantino’s films, his work here is practically somnambulant.
Green, by comparison, flails in what should be a cakewalk of a role, a vixen who’s still plenty attractive but not quite as irresistible as she used to be, even to men who think more with their little head than their big one. In an impatient, unconvincing performance, she seems out of place everywhere she goes; rather than leaning tropical with her clothing (in this setting, she’s overprepared to play a sarong-and-silk-florals trophy wife), costume designer Irina Kotcheva repeatedly dresses her in strappy, skintight dresses that call back to the character’s callgirl days.
The tête-a-tête between Jack and Nora gets tedious pretty quickly, while as counterparts, Dani, Chad and Bianca are just not smart, sympathetic or interesting enough to sustain our interest in this labyrinthine plot. It doesn’t help that Fernández can’t seem to decide between a flat SoCal surfer drawl or something slightly more exotic. In fact, the strange and inconsistent accents really undermine any coherent sense of place; as the closest to a native, Pedraza only barely seems indigenous. The appearance of Nicole Ansari Cox as a nun who’s also the best cop in the film further makes you wonder what recruitment tactics this tiny island uses for its local police force.
That said, even though the catastrophic “Green Lantern” long ago booted Campbell out of Hollywood’s good graces — undeservedly so; the movie stinks, but it’s not his fault — he still delivers the same glossy results he did in two of the most beloved post-Connery James Bond films. Though it feels like it was designed for streaming services or basic cable, “Just Play Dead” doesn’t deserve to look as good as it does, although the locations are so gorgeous that just about anybody could set down a camera and capture similarly luscious images. Sadly, reunited with Green, Campbell is unable to recapture her and Daniel Craig’s simmering “Casino Royale” chemistry with any of her co-stars.
By comparison, both 2022’s Liam Neeson starrer “Memory” and last year’s “Cleaner” are better demonstrations of Campbell’s still-considerable skills. This film, unfortunately, feels as derivative of “Pulp Fiction” and “Get Shorty” as the lackluster copycats that killed the genre a few decades ago: That the first film it brings to mind is the lousy 2004 Elmore Leonard adaptation “The Big Bounce” is no compliment.
Is “Just Play Dead” an earnest crime comedy or, like the machinations of its characters, a front for nefarious legal practices? It’s tough to say for sure, but the film boasts six credited producers, three co-producers, four associate producers and 24 executive producers — significantly more individuals than there are speaking parts. Either way, it’s a sinkhole for everyone else’s time and money; you’re better off revisiting virtually any of those older films — yeah, even “The Big Bounce” — than bothering with this convoluted mess.
