Death and Texas (2004)
"Texas represents an American ideal."
- Kevin DiNovis
I hate mockumentaries and I should
have known better than to go to this one. Any time
you are invited to see a mockumentary about a serious
social issue, run like hell. What you are going to
see it some smart-ass filmmaker who thinks he's being
clever make fun of something that should be held in
higher esteem than to be lampooned. Such is the case
with "Death and Texas," a horrible piece of dung that
attempts to eek humor out of the death penalty. Yuck.
This film wavers so often between
supposedly funny and supposedly serious that anyone
with an IQ over 20 is going to get seasick. I've never
seen a film that so obviously didn't understand the
meaning of "tone." Emotionally and ideally, this film
is all over the map. And for what its worth, it also
makes Texas look like the asshole of America. (Which,
you know, it probably is in reality, but still...)
Filmmaker Kevin DiNovis, who had
a festival hit a few years ago with "Surrender, Dorothy,"
which I always wanted to see, doesn't really seem
to know what he's going for here. Well, actually,
yes he does. He's going for Hollywood and big bucks.
That's why he picks an obvious target like Texas and
death row and then hires a slew of medium wattage
celebs to be in his film.
Steve Harris of TV's "The Practice"
and Charles Durning are the big names here and have
fairly meaty role. But DiNovis must have some juicy
photos of several minor actors and musicians because
he peoples his film with the kind of faces that everyone
recognizes but cannot name. There's so many, however,
you'll know half of them on sight. I recognized Corbin
Bernsen, Mary Kay Place, Billy Ray Cyrus, Tiffany
(thanks to a friend telling me she was in the film),
and Andy Richter but did not realize I also saw Jello
Biafra, Rance Howard and Grant Lee Phillips. I only
recognized Bart Conner because he plays himself and
a graphic has his name on it. (There's lots of fake
TV and radio news in here).
"Death and Texas" is one of those
films that thinks its funny and important. It's not.
It's mean and cruel and viscous and makes light of
a serious subject. For shame.
Notes:
There were sound problems during
the screening I attended at SXSW in March in 2004
at the Alamo Drafthouse. The director was in attendance
and introduced the film but I did not stay for the
Q&A. The film seemed to be shot and screened on video.
