Slide into your movie seat and focus on the moment.
Ghost Dog is your 90-minute retainer. After you’ve watched the events of this film unfold, contemplate the interwoven complexities of the empty popcorn bucket and relax as your mind anticipates the soothing simplicity of your 9 a.m. physics midterm.
Sound ridiculous, intriguing or perhaps both?
The critically-acclaimed new film, starring Forest Whitaker, directed by Jim Jarmusch and with a powerful soundtrack from RZA, takes viewers on a multi-layered journey, exploring topics ranging from spirituality to the cultural significance of hip-hop music.
The movie plot sounds something like an old B-movie samurai flick from the 1960s. And it is, plus countless other elements all at once.
Whitaker plays Ghost Dog, a samurai in modern-day Detroit, with a life-debt to his retainer Louie (John Tormey). Twelve years earlier, Louie saved Ghost Dog’s life from a gang of street thugs. Shortly thereafter, he appears at Louie’s doorstep, offering his unique services. Whenever Louie, or someone from his “family” needs to make a hit on a local thug, he can call in Ghost Dog to take care of business.
Not by cell-phone or pager, but by pigeon.
Ghost Dog lives alone, in a tiny shack, on the roof of an apartment building in downtown Detroit. His possessions are of only the most basic necessity: a bed, pigeon food and a CD player to listen to his favorite rap music.
Using one of several dozen carrier pigeons to communicate with Louie on a daily basis, Ghost Dog sends and receives instructions for his next assignment.
Things have gone this way for more than 10 years, until a moment of chance alters Ghost Dog’s life and sets the movie’s plot into motion.
While performing his most recent hit on a relative of the family, Ghost Dog leaves behind a young woman at the scene. She wasn’t supposed to be there, so he feels no reason to end her life.
However, we soon learn that this woman is the daughter of a family leader. The only acceptable retribution for this fatal mistake is another killing. But this time, it’s Ghost Dog who is being hunted.
Louie does his best to convince the family otherwise, but it’s his life or Ghost Dog’s, and probably both. Ghost Dog is then left with the dual responsibility of defending his own life and maintaining his loyalty to Louie while at the same time killing all of his colleagues.
Whitaker is exceptional in his performance. Silent for most of the film, he periodically narrates text from the Hagakure, an 18th-century book of samurai code that serves as his spiritual guide.
Even in near silence, Whitaker conveys a wealth of rich emotions, ranging from the cold brutality he unleashes on the Italian mob, to the unconditional kindness and generosity he lavishes upon an immigrant ice-cream vendor and a young girl whom he meets in a local park.
The film is directed by Jim Jarmusch, who in 1996 gave us Dead Man, starring Johnny Depp. He has also directed music videos for the Talking Heads, Tom Waits and Neil Young. Jarmusch does a brilliant job with the screenplay he also wrote, taking what appears on the surface to be a simple tale of violence and weaving it into a masterpiece of quality writing, convincing acting and the best hip-hop soundtrack ever produced.
In its own right, the soundtrack gives us more aesthetic and rhythmic satisfaction than most films do in their entirety. RZA, the genius producer behind the Wu-Tang Clan, has produced a soundtrack of the highest quality, one that both enriches the storyline and provides a hypnotic mood for the film’s setting.
Don’t be fooled by the lackluster previews or the guy sitting next to you who thinks soundtracks should only be done by Elton John. This is a film worth seeing, more than once.