I recommend this movie because of the mature, intricate, screenplay and the excellent acting. On the other hand, from a technical filmmakers standpoint, there isn't really much more to recommend "Let Me Die Quietly." If there was a budget on this film I doubt it would add up to more than a decent dinner bill and although the movie is credited with two directors, which may have something to do with its patchiness, it really seems to have had no direction. The pacing is uneven and there are many missed opportunities for building dread and suspense.
When you have no budget to work with, for the most part all that you have to make a movie a success is the dialogue and acting and that is where "Let Me Die Quietly" succeeds. I love film noir--and the screenplay here strives hard to modernize the style. That means voice overs, shadowy locations, some handsome men, a gorgeous, mysterious woman, melodrama, occasional over the top dialogue, and a murderous plot. This movie has all of these things although sometimes it seems a bit all over the place. Reigned in and sharpened and this movie could be a classic.
As it is, "Let Me Die Quietly," actually belongs to the actors. Charles Casillo as the drugged and drunken, "Mario," rasps, broods, suffers, lusts, regrets, and eventually sheds everything in a complex and fascinating performance as a tortured psychic who "sees" things. No, he doesn't see dead people but his psychic ability does force him to live through the last moments of a victims moments before death. It is Casillo's shoulders that the first half of the film rests on--and his encounters with a priest, a stranger, his doctor, a detective, and most of all, a beautiful new friend, "Gabrielle." Casillo reacts differently to each character and I particularly enjoyed his interactions with the "seen it all" detective "Devlin." Paul Coughlan as "Devlin" is wonderful. At first he comes across as the all cliché, world-weary, homophobic, "seen it all" cop. But Mario also spills out all of his own cliché defense mechanisms to deal with the detective. In their first meeting Mario releases his vulnerability, flirts, gets angry, and then wearily sarcastic. Devlin is impervious to Mario's bag of "faggot" tricks. And as they match each other layer for layer, line for line, you can see a mutual respect growing and they begin develop into two men, from different worlds, with an unlikely fondness for each other. This is acting chemistry at its best, and Coughlan and Casillo's scenes demonstrate great interaction between two actors.
It would have been easy for lovely Dana Perry to fall into playing "Gabrielle,"--the other psychic Mario meets by chance--as a sultry, sexy, vixen. Instead Perry displays a touching sensitivity in the role and you understand why Mario, basically a homosexual, falls for her. He is desperate for more than sexual excitement and longs for an emotional connection, which Gabrielle provides. Perry, with her multi-dimensional acting makes that attraction and connection believable.
Mario also reveals his problems to his psychiatrist, Dr. Avery. From the start, Ian Tomaschik as the doctor gives off an oily charm. He is tough with Mario, but it seems like he is trying to break through his dream-like, drugged haze--his macabre fantasies--and force him to deal with reality. He doesn't believe in Mario's visions and hopes to get him to begin living in the real world. All of these encounters are the set up for the second half of the movie where the machinations going on surrounding Mario's life are revealed. It is in the last forty-five minutes that the movie shifts from being an art house character study into a more conventional Hollywood-type thriller.
I enjoyed "Let Me Die Quietly" for the good writing, clever twists, and most of all the fine performances all around. Although I would say it is certainly not for conventional movie audiences who have grown to expect a slicker execution.
