2000's R-Rated Crime Comedy That Wants You to Die, But Only for the Money
Written by Robert Scucci | Published
After watching the 2002 Hard Moneypowerful algorithms directed me to some wrong heist movies from scratch, which made me spend 88 minutes of my life watching 2001. I wish you were dead. Similar to Hard Money, I wish you were dead it makes you wonder what could have been, because all the moving parts are there for a great movie. The heist is fun, and has a logical progression that any crime comedy fan can follow. There's intrigue and richness, and each character has enough personality to keep you interested in the premise.
The problem with I wish you were deadwhich, unlike Hard Moneyhe's actually trying to be a joke, that the actions of the characters don't always match their surroundings. The jokes and physical humor are there, but the humor is cut short when, in my opinion, things should have been dead. I wish you were dead trying to capture a The Worst Things kind of vibe, but it should have taken a page from the Naked Gun playbook.
Is It True Love If There Is No Insurance Fraud?
At face value, I wish you were dead it has a fun setup and great on-screen chemistry that makes you wish it stuck. We are first introduced to Melody (Elaine Hendrix), a hot woman who likes to eat a lot of chocolate. Her love of sweets reminds me of Rutger Hauer's Harley Stone from 1992. Split Secondbut the similarities end there. Melody's skill is taking clients with unfaithful husbands, beating them, and moving on to the next job.
His next job, however, is where things get complicated.
Melody is hired by Sally (Mary Steenburgen) and Tanya Rider (Tanya Allen), a mother-daughter team who devise a fraud scheme against a lowly insurance adjuster named Mac (Cary Elwes), who has a million dollar life insurance policy to his name. Sally and Tanya's plan is simple: convince Mac that Sally is pregnant with his child so he'll make her the heir to his autopsy payment, then hire Melody to finish him off.
Things get even more complicated when Melody decides that she is actually in love with Mac and cannot, in good conscience, kill him. Instead, they meet up with Mac's old employee, Bruce (Christopher Lloyd), and devise their plan to avoid Sally and Tanya, save Mac's life, and get away with the money. Along the way, there are run-ins with Gene Simmons from KISS, who plays an eponymous hairdresser named Vinny, as well as appearances by Billy Ray Cyrus and Robert Englund portraying a wisecracking preacher with Tourette syndrome.
It Should Work But It Doesn't
I wish you were dead it's dripping with power, but it's not fully audible because it's too far apart. I have a hard time explaining why it's classified, because the story beats are strong, and the stakes are growing naturally. Everyone you see on screen has acting chops and knows the job to do, but something about the job itself doesn't work.
I might change my mind if I rewatched the movie, because maybe I was sad or something when I watched it, but it didn't make me laugh. This movie has It's always sunny in Philadelphia levels of subtlety. Elaine Hendrix's crazy eyes when she goes crazy, shooting swords at Christopher Lloyd, should, in theory, be funny. But for some reason, it doesn't gel. Mac is the perfect victim of circumstance, caught between a murder plot and a budding romance with a hired killer. It's all funny stuff, but it's too weird to be taken seriously, even as a comedy, and too campy when it should have been a bit over the top.
Let the truth speak, I wish you were dead it confuses me enough that I want to watch it again and update my situation. All the ingredients of a great crime comedy are there, but as a whole, the movie feels much less than the sum of its parts.
From this writing, you can broadcast I wish you were dead free on Tubi.
