Pete Smalls Is Dead

I knew practically nothing about "Pete Smalls Is Dead" when I started watching it, which made it even more of a treat. Peter Dinklage plays a man who goes to LA to attend the funeral of a deceased friend...but discovers that there's more to his friend than just the death.

After watching the movie for a few minutes, I got the feeling that it could easily be a Coen Brothers movie (although it has a different director). The quirky characters and presence of Steve Buscemi -- wearing a curly blond wig! -- give it that feeling.

"PSID" isn't any kind of great movie, but it's certainly worth seeing. Pretty fun. Also starring Mark Boone Junior, Rosie Perez, Lena Headey and Michael Lerner.

With a cast like this that alone should make for a pretty interesting movie, but unfortunately that is not the case and it is a rather forgettable tale.

So forgettable in fact that I forgot I had already seen it a couple years back and didn't realise until when I (re)watched it today 30 minutes in when Steve Buscemi shows up in an awful blonde afro wig that I had indeed seen it before.

It's supposed to be a comedy, but it's just not particularly funny. And in the end when the "mystery" is solved (I say that lightly because it's pretty obvious and it's not a mystery movie as such) in retrospect the script is rather stupid as well.

I made sure to write a review and rate it this time around so I don't have the misfortune of possibly watching it again in a couple of years when I very possibly would have forgotten about it all over again.

A very weak 4/10 from me, it would have been less if not for Peter Dinklage and Theresa Wayman.

You couldn't really call Pete Smalls noir, it's far too daylight for that, but certainly the story follows noir ideas. The beauty of the film is the succession of well known and highly capable actors all turning their roles into charm. It's a brilliant piece of casting. Peter Dinklage is the star and brings some of that cynicism he does so well in Game of Thrones to the fore in this as well. Mark Boone carries most of the acting burden and is perfect as the well-intentioned mate. You'll see Steve Buscemi and Lena Headey in utterly unfamiliar roles. Ritchie Coster as the bad guy plays a role that lovers of Happy! (2017) will find further admiration. Tim Roth plays a role he is far more suited to than the character he plays as the never-wrong Lie To Me guy or the tougher-than-everyone-else Tin Star guy. The most classic roles are those of Theresa Wayman as the quintessential French mystery woman, and Seymour Cassel as the Mexican grandfather figure. All enjoy a great script and many good original lines. It's a movie about friendship, and in that it succeeds with bells on.

I had actually never even heard about this 2010 comedy titled "Pete Smalls Is Dead" as I stumbled upon it here in 2025. And given it being a movie that I hadn't already seen, of course I opted to check out the movie.

The storyline in the movie was adequate, though I have to say that it was not overly funny or outstanding. The contents that writers Brandon Cole and Alexandre Rockwell wrote was suitable for a single viewing.

There are a lot of familiar faces on the cast list, with the likes of Peter Dinklage, Mark Boone Junior, Todd Barry, Steve Buscemi, Seymour Cassel, Lena Headey, Michael Lerner, Rosie Perez and Tim Roth. The acting performances in the movie were good.

Watchable, for sure, but hardly an outstanding or overly memorable foray in cinematic history. Nor is it a movie that I will visit a second time.

My rating of director Alexandre Rockwell's 2010 movie "Pete Smalls Is Dead" lands on a five out of ten stars.

This film was certainly not what I expected it to be. Luckily, it was much more than that.

I stumbled across the title while searching for a film with Peter Dinklage, whose style I really do enjoy. Here he plays a hapless laundromat owner, who needs to find ten thousand dollars to recover his near-blind dog from a loan shark who had him taken as collateral on unpaid debts.

This is what starts a dark comedy written with pacing, style and tropes taken from old film noirs. An original idea, that does deliver the goods. Helping the success are the characters, very human with their many flaws and thus also very practical comedy vehicles.

As the film ends, the style has been enjoyable, the cheerfulness despite of all the sad smudge has been constant, and the open-minded viewer will be happy that they spent their time on this unfortunately forgotten piece of film.